UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


504 


THE  OLD  MASTERS 


OF 


BELGIUM    AND    HOLLAND 

[LES  MA!TRES  D'AUTREFOIS] 

BY    EUGENE    FROMENTIN 

« 

TRANSLATED    BY 

MRS.   MARY   C.    ROBBINS 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

Cfic  flrtxrsiDc  press*  CambriDfle 


Copyright,  1882, 
BY  JAMES  R.  OSGOOD  AND  COMPANY. 

All  rights  reserved. 


Art 
Library 

WD 
G36, 


PREFACE. 


I  HAVE  just  been  viewing  Rubens  and  Rembrandt  in 
their  own  homes,  and  at  the  same  time  the  Dutch  school 
in  its  unchanging  frame  of  agricultural  and  maritime  life,  of 
downs,  pastures,  huge  clouds,  and  low  horizons. 

Here  are  two  arts,  distinct,  perfectly  complete,  entirely 
independent  of  each  other,  and  very  brilliant,  which  re- 
quire to  be  studied  at  once  by  an  historian,  a  thinker,  and  a 
painter.  That  the  work  should  be  properly  done  requires 
the  union  of  these  three  men  in  one ;  and  I  have  nothing  in 
common  with  the  two  first,  while  as  to  the  painter,  however 
a  man  may  have  a  feeling  for  distances,  he  ceases  to  be  one 
in  approaching  the  least  known  of  the  masters  of  these  priv- 
ileged countries.  I  shall  traverse  the  museums,  but  I  shall 
not  review  them.  I  shall  stop  before  certain  men :  I  shall 
not  relate  their  lives,  nor  catalogue  their  works,  even  those 
preserved  by  their  compatriots.  I  shall  define  simply  as  I 


iv  PREFACE. 

understand  them,  as  fully  as  I  can  seize  them,  certain  charac- 
teristic sides  of  their  genius  or  talent.  I  shall  not  grapple 
with  too  great  questions ;  I  shall  avoid  profundities  and  dark 
places.  The  art  of  painting  is  only  the  art  of  expressing 
the  invisible  by  the  visible.  Whether  its  roads  be  great  or 
small,  they  are  sown  with  problems  which  it  is  permitted 
to  sound  for  one's  self  as  truths,  but  which  it  is  well  to  leave 
in  their  darkness  as  mysteries.  I  shall  only  speak  con- 
cerning certain  pictures,  of  the  surprise,  the  pleasure,  the 
astonishment,  and  with  no  less  precision  of  the  vexation, 
which  they  have  caused  me.  In  all  this  I  shall  only  trans- 
late with  sincerity  the  inconsequent  sensations  of  the  mere 
amateur. 

I  warn  you  that  there  will  be  no  method,  no  course  pur- 
sued in  these  studies.  You  will  find  here  many  gaps,  prefer- 
ences, and  omissions,  without  this  want  of  balance  detracting 
at  all  from  the  importance  or  the  value  of  the  works  of  which 
I  may  not  have  spoken.  I  shall  often  recall  the  Louvre,  and 
shall  not  fear  to  conduct  you  thither,  that  examples  may  be 
nearer,  and  verifications  easier.  It  is  possible  that  some  of 
my  opinions  may  conflict  with  those  generally  received.  I 
shall  not  seek,  but  I  shall  not  avoid,  any  revision  of  ideas 
which  may  arise  from  these  disagreements.  I  entreat  you 
not  to  see  in  this  any  indication  of  a  guerilla  spirit,  which 


PREFACE.  V 

seeks  to  distinguish  itself  by  boldness,  and  which,  while  trav- 
elling the  beaten  path,  would  fear  to  be  accused  of  observ- 
ing nothing,  if  it  did  not  judge  everything  differently  from 
others. 

To  tell  the  truth,  these  studies  will  be  only  notes,  and 
these  notes  the  disconnected  and  disproportionate  elements 
of  a  book  to  be  made  in  a  more  special  manner  than  those 
which  have  been  made  up  to  this  time,  —  a  book  in  which 
philosophy,  aesthetics,  nomenclature,  and  anecdotes  will  hold 
less  place  and  the  questions  of  the  craft  much  greater  place. 

It  should  be  like  a  sort  of  talk  about  painting,  where  the 
painters  would  recognize  their  habits,  where  men  of  the 
world  would  learn  to  better  know  painters  and  painting. 
For  the  moment  my  method  will  be  to  forget  everything 
which  has  been  said  on  this  subject ;  my  aim,  to  raise  ques- 
tions, to  produce  a  wish  to  think  about  them,  and  to  inspire 
in  those  who  would  be  capable  of  rendering  us  such  a  service 
the  curiosity  to  solve  them.  I  call  these  pages,  The  Old 
Masters,  as  I  should  speak  of  the  severe  or  familiar  masters 
of  our  French  tongue,  if  I  were  speaking  of  Pascal,  of  Bos- 
suet,  of  La  Bruyere,  of  Voltaire,  or  of  Diderot,  —  with  this 
difference,  that  in  France  there  are  schools  where  respect 
for  and  study  of  these  masters  of  style  are  still  maintained, 
while  I  scarcely  know  where  in  these  days  the  advice  is 


vi  PREFACE. 

given  to  respectfully  study  the  ever  exemplary  masters   of 
Flanders  and  Holland. 

I  shall,  moreover,  suppose  that  the  reader  whom  I  address 
is  enough  like  me  to  follow  me  without  too  much  fatigue, 
and  yet  different  enough  to  give  me  the  pleasure  of  con- 
tradicting him,  so  that  I  can  put  some  ardor  into  my  at- 
tempts to  convince  him. 

BRUSSELS,  July  6,  1875. 


CONTENTS. 


PART  I.  — BELGIUM. 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    THE  MUSEUM  AT  BRUSSELS 3 

II.    THE  MASTERS  OF  RUBENS 18 

III.  RUBENS  IN  THE  BRUSSELS  MUSEUM 28 

IV.  RUBENS  AT  MECHLIN 39 

V.    THE  ELEVATION  OF  THE  CROSS  AND  THE  CRUCIFIXION  .    .  56 

VI.    RUBENS  AT  THE  ANTWERP  MUSEUM 72 

VII.    RUBENS  AS  A  PORTRAIT  PAINTER 80 

VIII.    THE  TOMB  OF  RUBENS .  95 

IX.    VANDYCK 108 

PART   II.  — HOLLAND. 

I.    THE  HAGUE  AND  SCHEVENINGEN 117 

II.    ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER  OF  THE  DUTCH  SCHOOL  ....  123 

III.  THE  VIJVER 141 

IV.  THE  SUBJECT  IN  DUTCH  PAINTING 146 

V.     PAUL  POTTER 157 


viii  CONTENTS. 

CMArra  PAGE 

VI.    TERBURG,  METZU,  AND  PIETER  DE  HOOGH  AT  THE  LOUVRE  168 

VII.      RUYSDAEL 183 

VIII.    CUYP 196 

IX.    THE  INFLUENCE  OF  HOLLAND  UPON  FRENCH  LANDSCAPE  .  203 

X.    THE  ANATOMICAL  LECTURE 218 

XI.    FRANS  HALS  AT  HAARLEM 224 

XII.    AMSTERDAM 235 

XIII.  THE  NIGHT  WATCH 245 

XIV.  REMBRANDT  AT  THE  Six  AND  VAN  LOON  GALLERIES.  — 

REMBRANDT  AT  THE  LOUVRE 276 

XV.    THE  SYNDICS 292 

XVI.    REMBRANDT  .    . 299 

PART  III.  — BELGIUM. 

THE  VAN  EYCKS  AND  MEMLING 317 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


RUBENS. 

PAGE 

THE  DESCENT  FROM  THE  CROSS Frontispiece 

CHRIST  ASCENDING  CALVARY 32 

THE  ADORATION  OF  THE  MAGI 40 

THE  MIRACULOUS  DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES 44 

THE  ELEVATION  OF  THE  CROSS 66 

PAUL   POTTER. 
THE  YOUNG  BULL 162 

REMBRANDT. 

THE  ANATOMICAL  LECTURE 220 

THE  NIGHT  WATCH 252 


PART    I. 


BELGIUM. 


THE 


OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 


~>3.  -'+-  I 
BELGIUM. 

I. 

Z./0  0  B 

THE   MUSEUM  AT  BRUSSELS. 

THE  Brussels  Museum  has  always  had  much  greater  value  than 
renown.  What  injures  it  in  the  eyes  of  people  whose  minds  in- 
stinctively take  long  flights,  is  its  being  but  two  steps  from  our  own 
frontier,  and  consequently  the  first  stage  in  a  pilgrimage  which  con- 
ducts to  sacred  shrines.  Van  Eyck  is  at  Ghent,  Memling  at  Bruges, 
Rubens  at  Antwerp.  Brussels  possesses  as  its  own  none  of  these 
great  men.  She  did  not  witness  their  birth  ;  she  scarcely  saw  them 
paint ;  she  has  neither  their  ashes  nor  their  masterpieces.  A  pre- 
tence is  made  of  visiting  them  at  home  ;  but  it  is  elsewhere  that 
they  await  us.  All  this  gives  to  this  pretty  capital  the  appearance 
of  an  empty  house,  and  exposes  it  to  being  quite  unjustly  neglected. 
It  is  not  known,  or  it  is  forgotten,  that  nowhere  in  Flanders  do  the 
three  princes  of  Flemish  painting  march  with  such  an  escort  of  paint- 
ers and  able  men,  who  surround  them,  follow  them,  precede  them, 
and  open  for  them  the  gates  of  history,  —  disappearing  when  they 


4  THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

enter,  but  still  causing  them  to  enter.  Belgium  is  a  magnificent 
book  of  art,  whose  chapters,  fortunately  for  provincial  glory,  are  to 
be  found  everywhere,  but  whose  preface  is  at  Brussels,  and  only  at 
Brussels;  and  I  would  say  to  any  one  who  should  be  tempted  to 
skip  the  preface  to  reach  the  book,  that  he  makes  a  mistake,  that 
he  opens  the  book  too  soon,  and  that  he  will  read  it  unprofitably. 
This  preface  is  very  fine  in  itself;  it  is,  moreover,  a  document 
whose  place  nothing  supplies.  It  informs  one  what  is  to  be  seen, 
prepares  for,  suggests,  explains  everything  ;  setting  in  order  the  con- 
fusion of  proper  names,  and  works  which  are  entangled  in  the  multi- 
tude of  chapels,  where  the  chance  of  time  has  disseminated  them,  and 
classing  them  here  without  mistake,  thanks  to  the  perfect  tact  which 
has  united  and  classified  them.  It  is  a  kind  of  list  of  what  artists 
Belgium  has  produced  up  to  the  time  of  the  modern  school,  and 
really  a  record  of  what  it  possesses  in  its  divers  places  of  deposit, 
museums,  churches,  convents,  hospitals,  town  halls,  and  private  col- 
lections. Possibly  she  herself  scarcely  comprehended  with  exact- 
ness the  extent  of  this  vast  national  treasure,  the  most  opulent  in 
the  world,  except  that  of  Holland,  and  second  only  to  that  of  Italy, 
before  she  came  into  possession  of  these  two  equally  well  kept  regis- 
ters, the  museums  of  Antwerp  and  Brussels.  In  a  word,  the  history 
of  art  in  Flanders  is  capricious,  even  romantic.  At  each  moment 
the  thread  is  broken  and  found  again  ;  one  imagines  painting  lost, 
gone  astray  upon  the  great  highways  of  the  world  ;  it  is  a  little 
like  the  Prodigal  Son  returning  when  he  is  no  longer  expected.  If 
you  would  have  an  idea  of  its  adventures,  and  learn  what  happened 


THE  MUSEUM  AT  BRUSSELS.  5 

to  it  during  its  absence,  examine  the  museum  of  Brussels  ;  it  will 
tell  you  all,  with  that  facility  of  information  which  an  abridgment 
can  offer,  —  an  abridgment,  complete,  truthful,  and  perfectly  clear, 
of  a  history  that  has  endured  for  two  centuries.  I  am  not  speaking 
merely  of  the  management  of  the  place,  which  is  perfect.  Fine 
rooms,  good  light,  works  choice  from  their  beauty,  their  rarity,  or 
merely  for  their  historical  value ;  the  most  ingenious  exactitude  in 
determining  the  value  of  works  coming  from  abroad, —  in  fine,  a  taste, 
a  care,  a  knowledge,  a  respect  for  the  things  of  art,  which  make  to- 
day of  this  rich  collection  a  model  museum.  Understand,  it  is 
especially  a  Flemish  museum,  which  gives  it  a  family  interest  for 
Flanders,  and  for  Europe  an  inestimable  value. 

In  it  the  Dutch  school  is  scarcely  seen  ;  you  scarcely  look  for  it. 
It  would  find  here  habits  and  beliefs  foreign  to  its  own,  —  mystical, 
catholic,  and  pagan,  with  none  of  which  it  would  feel  at  home. 
Here  it  would  encounter  the  legends,  the  ancient  history,  and  the 
direct  or  indirect  memorials  of  the  dukes  of  Burgundy,  the  arch- 
dukes of  Austria,  the  Italian  dukes,  the  Pope,  Charles  V.,  Philip  II., 
that  is  to  say,  all  the  things  and  all  the  people  that  it  did  not  rec- 
ognize or  which  it  denied,  against  which  it  combated  for  a  hun- 
dred years,  and  from  which  its  genius,  its  instincts,  its  needs,  and 
consequently  its  destiny,  sharply  and  violently  separated  it  Be- 

» 

tween  Moerdyk  and  Dordrecht  there  is  only  the  Meuse  to  pass, 
but  a  whole  world  separates  the  two  frontiers.  Antwerp  is  the 
antipodes  of  Amsterdam,  and  by  his  good-natured  eclecticism  and 
the  gay  and  sociable  side  of  his  genius,  Rubens  is  more  ready 


6  THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

to  fraternize  with  Veronese,  Tintoretto,  Titian,  Correggio,  or  even 
with  Raphael,  than  with  Rembrandt,  his  contemporary,  but  his  in- 
tractable contradictor. 

As  to  Italian  art,  it  is  here  only  as  a  reminder.  It  is  an  art 
that  is  falsified  by  acclimation,  and  which  alters  its  very  nature 
in  entering  Flanders.  In  perceiving,  in  the  least  Flemish  part 
of  the  gallery,  two  portraits  by  Tintoretto,  not  excellent,  much 
retouched,  but  typical,  one  fails  to  understand  them  beside  the 
works  of  Memling,  of  Martin  de  Vos,  of  Van  Orley,  of  Rubens,  of 
Vandyck,  even  of  Antonio  Moro.  It  is  the  same  with  Veronese ; 
he  is  out  of  place,  his  color  is  faded  and  bears  traces  of  dis- 
temper, his  style  seems  a  little  cold,  his  pomp  studied  and  almost 
affected.  The  work  is,  however,  a  superb  one  in  his  finest  manner ; 
it  is  a  fragment  of  triumphal  mythology  detached  from  one  of  the 
ceilings  of  the  ducal  palace,  one  of  the  best ;  but  Rubens  is  beside 
it,  and  that  very  thing  suffices  to  give  to  the  Venetian  Rubens  a 
foreign  accent.  Which  of  the  two  is  right  ?  In  listening  only  to 
the  tongue  so  excellently  spoken  by  these  two  men,  which  is  the 
better,  —  the  correct  and  learned  rhetoric  they  employ  in  Venice, 
or  the  emphatic,  grandiose,  and  warm  incorrectness  of  the  Antwerp 
speech  ?  In  Venice  one  inclines  to  Veronese,  but  in  Flanders 
Rubens  is  better  understood. 

Italian  art  has  that  quality  common  to  all  strongly  constituted 
arts,  that  it  is  at  once  very  cosmopolitan  because  it  has  been 
everywhere,  and  very  haughty  because  it  has  been  sufficient  to 
itself.  It  is  at  home  in  all  Europe  except  in  two  countries, 


THE  MUSEUM  AT  BRUSSELS.  7 

—  Belgium,  whose  spirit  it  has  visibly  impregnated  without  ever 
mastering  it,  and  Holland,  which  at  first  seemed  to  consult  it,  and 
finally  did  without  it ;  so  that,  while  it  lives  on  friendly  terms  with 
Spain,  and  reigns  in  France,  where,  at  least  in  historical  painting, 
our  best  painters  have  been  Romans,  it  encounters  in  Flanders 
two  or  three  very  great  men  of  lofty  and  indigenous  race,  who 
hold  sway,  and  mean  to  divide  their  empire  with  none. 

The  history  of  the  relations  of  these  two  countries,  Italy  and 
Flanders,  is  curious ;  it  is  long,  it  is  diffuse.  Elsewhere  it  is  con- 
fusing ;  but  here,  as  I  have  told  you,  it  can  be  read  easily.  It 
begins  at  Van  Eyck,  and  ends  on  the  day  that  Rubens  left  Genoa 
and  returned,  bringing  with  his  luggage  the  cream  of  Italian  les- 
sons, that  is,  all  of  it  that  the  art  of  his  country  could  reasonably 
support.  This  history  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  in 
Flanders  forms  the  medium  part  and  the  truly  original  founda- 
tion of  this  museum. 

We  enter  by  the  fourteenth  century  ;  we  end  with  the  first  half 
of  the  seventeenth.  At  the  two  extremities  of  this  brilliant  course 
we  are  struck  by  the  same  phenomenon, —  rare  enough  in  such 
a  little  country,  —  we  see  an  art  which  was  born  of  itself,  on  the  spot ; 
and  an  art  which  was  born  again  when  it  was  thought  to  be  dead. 
Van  Eyck  is  recognized  in  a  very  fine  Adoration  of  the  Magi ; 
Memling  is  suggested  by  certain  fine  portraits ;  and  there,  at  the 
very  end,  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  later,  Rubens  is  perceived ;  — 
each  time  a  sun  rises,  and  then  sets  with  the  splendor  and  the 
brevity  of  a  beautiful  day  without  a  morrow. 


8  THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

While  Van  Eyck  is  above  the  horizon,  he  casts  gleams  whiui 
reach  to  the  very  confines  of  the  modern  world  ;  and  it  seems  as 
if  it  were  these  gleams,  that  it  recognized  and  which  illumined  it, 
that  awakened  the  modern  world.  Italy  is  warned  of  it  and  comes 
to  Bruges.  Thus  it  was,  that  from  a  visit  of  workmen  curious  to 
know  what  they  must  do  in  order  to  paint  well,  with  brilliancy, 
with  consistency,  with  ease,  with  permanence,  there  began  between 
these  two  peoples  those  comings  and  goings  which,  however  they 
changed  in  character  and  direction,  never  ceased.  Van  Eyck  is 
not  alone  ;  around  him  swarm  works,  —  works  rather  than  names. 
They  cannot  be  well  distinguished  either  among  themselves  or 
from  the  German  school :  it  is  a  jewel  case,  a  reliquary,  a 
sparkling  of  precious  gems.  Imagine  a  collection  of  painted  jewel 
work  —  in  which  is  recognized  the  hand  of  the  enameller,  of  the 
glass-worker,  of  the  engraver,  and  of  the  illuminator  of  psalters  ; 
whose  sentiment  is  grave,  whose  inspiration  is  monastic,  whose 
destination  is  princely  ;  which  show  already  experienced  handling 
and  dazzling  effect  —  in  the  midst  of  which  Memling  remains  ever 
distinct,  unique,  candid,  and  delicious,  like  a  flower  whose  root  is 
unattainable,  and  which  has  sent  forth  no  shoots. 

After  the  extinction  of  this  fair  dawn,  the  fading  of  this  lovely 
twilight,  night  descended  upon  the  North,  and  Italy  was  seen  to 
shine.  Quite  naturally  the  North  rushed  thither.  Flanders  was 
at  that  time  at  that  critical  moment  in  the  life  of  individuals  and 
of  peoples  when,  if  they  are  no  longer  young,  they  must  ripen ; 
for  when  one  almost  ceases  to  believe,  one  must  know.  Flanders 


THE  MUSEUM  AT  BRUSSELS.  9 

did  to  Italy  what  Italy  had  been  doing  to  antiquity ;  she  turned 
towards  Rome,  Florence,  Milan,  Parma,  and  Venice,  even  as  Rome 
and  Milan,  Florence  and  Parma,  had  turned  towards  Latin  Rome 
and  Greece. 

The  first  to  go  was  Mabuse,  who  went  to  Italy  about  1 508  ;  then 
Van  Orley,  at  the  latest  in  1527;  then  Floris,  then  Coxcie,  and 
others  followed.  For  a  century  there  existed  on  classic  ground 
a  Flemish  academy,  which  formed  excellent  pupils  and  some  good 
painters ;  which  came  near  stifling  the  Antwerp  school  by  force 
of  culture  without  greatness  of  soul,  by  lessons  well  or  ill  learned, 
and  which  finally  served  to  sow  the  unknown.  Do  we  here 
find  the  precursors  ?  At  least  these  are  the  original  stock,  the 
intermediaries,  the  men  who  study  with  a  will,  who  desire  renown, 
who  are  charmed  by  novelty,  tormented  by  ideal  excellence.  I 
cannot  say  that  in  this  hybrid  art  everything  was  of  a  kind  to 
console  for  what  no  longer  existed,  or  to  excite  hopes  of  what 
was  coming. 

But  in  any  case  they  all  captivate,  interest,  instruct  us,  even  if 
we  only  learn  from  them  to  understand  one  thing,  which  seems 
common  because  so  definitely  proved,  —  the  renewal  of  the  mod- 
ern by  the  ancient  world,  and  the  extraordinary  gravitation  which 
drew  Europe  towards  the  Italian  Renascence.  The  Renascence  was 
produced  in  the  North  exactly  as  it  was  in  the  South,  with  this 
difference,  that  at  the  time  we  have  reached,  Italy  precedes, 
Flanders  follows  ;  and  while  Italy  possesses  schools  of  rare  culture 
and  noble  understanding,  Flemish  scholars  hasten  thither. 


10          THE   OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

These  scholars,  to  call  them  by  a  name  which  does  honor  to 
their  masters,  —  these  disciples,  better  so  named  from  their  enthu- 
siasm and  according  to  their  merits,  are  diverse,  and  diversely 
impressed  by  the  spirit  which  speaks  to  all  of  them  from  afar, 
and  charms  them  when  near,  according  to  their  natures.  Some 
of  them  Italy  attracts  but  does  not  convert,  like  Mabuse,  who  re- 
mained Gothic  in  mind  and  in  execution,  and  brought  back  from 
his  excursion  only  the  taste  for  fine  architecture,  already  prefer- 
ring palaces  to  chapels.  There  are  some  whom  Italy  retained  and 
kept,  others  whom  she  sent  back,  freer,  more  supple,  more  nervous, 
even  too  much  inclined  towards  moving  attitudes,  like  Van  Orley  ; 
others  she  despatched  to  England,  Germany,  or  France ;  and  still 
others  returned  unrecognizable,  notably  Floris,  whose  turbulent  and 
cold  manner,  irregular  style,  and  thin  execution  were  hailed  as  an 
event  in  the  school,  and  gave  him  the  dangerous  honor  of  forming, 
it  is  said,  one  hundred  and  fifty  pupils. 

It  is  easy  to  recognize,  amidst  these  deserters,  certain  rarely  obsti- 
nate souls  who,  ingenuous  and  powerful,  remain  extraordinarily  at- 
tached to  their  native  soil,  and,  ploughing  it,  discover  on  the  spot 
something  new,  —  witness  Quentin  Matsys,  the  Antwerp  blacksmith, 
who  began  with  the  wrought-iron  well,  still  to  be  seen  before  the 
portal  of  Notre  Dame,  and  later,  with  the  same  honest  hand,  pre- 
cise and  powerful,  and  the  same  metal-worker's  tool,  painted  the 
Banker  and  his  Wife  in  the  Louvre,  and  the  admirable  Burial  of 
Christ  in  the  Antwerp  Museum. 

Without  leaving  this  historical  hall  of  the  Brussels  Museum,  one 


THE  MUSEUM  AT  BRUSSELS.  II 

might  make  extensive  studies  and  discover  many  curiosities.  The 
period  comprised  between  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  and  the 
last  third  of  the  sixteenth,  that  which  begins  after  Memling,  with 
Gerard  David  and  the  Stuerbouts,  and  which  finishes  with  the  last 
pupils  of  Floris,  —  for  instance,  Martin  de  Vos,  —  is  really  one  of  the 
periods  in  the  school  of  the  North  that  we  can  poorly  understand 
from  our  French  museums.  Here  are  found  names  wholly  unknown 
among  us,  like  Coxcie  and  Connixloo.  We  can  learn  to  understand 
the  merit  and  the  transitory  value  of  Floris,  and  at  a  glance  can 
define  his  historical  interest ;  as  to  his  glory,  it  will  forever  astonish, 
but  can  be  better  explained.  Bernard  van  Orley,  in  spite  of  all  the 
corruptions  of  his  manner,  his  mad  gesticulations  when  he  grows 
animated,  his  theatrical  rigidity  when  he  is  self-conscious,  his  faults 
in  drawing,  his  errors  in  taste,  is  revealed  to  us  as  an  exceptional 
painter,  first,  by  his  Trials  of  Job,  and  finally,  and  even  more  surely, 
by  his  portraits.  You  find  in  him  something  Gothic  and  something 
Florentine,  Mabuse  mingled  with  an  imitation  Michael  Angelo,  the 
anecdotic  style  in  his  triptych  of  Job,  his  historical  style  in  the  trip- 
tych of  the  Virgin  weeping  over  Christ, — in  one,  the  heavy  and 
pasty  style,  the  sombre  color,  the  tiresomeness  of  a  pale  rendering  of 
foreign  methods  ;  in  the  other,  the  violence  and  the  happy  hits  of  the 
palette,  glittering  surfaces,  and  the  glassy  brilliancy  appropriate  to 
a  practitioner  from  the  workshops  of  Bruges.  And  yet  such  is  the 
vigor,  the  inventive  force,  and  the  power  of  this  eccentric  and 
changeful  painter,  that  in  spite  of  his  extravagances,  he  is  recog- 
nized by  an  indescribably  imposing  originality.  At  Brussels  he  has 


12          THE   OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

some  surprising  works.  Observe  that  I  do  not  speak  to  you  of 
Franken,  —  Ambroise  Franken,  a  pure  Fleming  of  the  same  epoch, 
who  has  nothing  in  the  Brussels  Museum,  but  who  figures  at  Ant- 
werp in  an  altogether  wonderful  way,  and  who,  if  he  is  wanting  to 
the  series,  is  at  least  represented  by  analogous  painters.  Observe, 
too,  that  I  omit  those  pictures  poorly  defined  and  catalogued  as 
unknown  masters,  —  triptychs,  portraits  of  various  dates,  beginning 
with  the  two  life-sized  figures  of  Philip  the  Fair  and  the  Mad  Joanna, 
two  works  rare  from  the  value  attached  to  them  by  iconography, 
charming  in  their  execution,  most  instructive  by  their  appropriate- 
ness. The  museum  possesses  about  fifty  of  these  anonymous  num- 
bers. No  one  expressly  claims  them.  They  recall  certain  pictures  of 
better  determined  origin,  sometimes  connect  and  confirm  them,  make 
their  relationship  clearer,  and  better  fill  out  their  genealogical  tree. 

Consider,  moreover,  that  the  primitive  Dutch  school,  that  of 
Haarlem,  which  is  confounded  with  the  Flemish  school  till  the  day 
when  Holland  ceased  to  be  confounded  entirely  with  Flanders,  this 
first  effort  of  the  Netherlands  to  produce  indigenous  fruits  of  painting, 
is  to  be  seen  here,  and  I  pass  it  by.  I  will  only  mention  Stuerbout, 
with  his  two  imposing  panels  of  the  Justice  of  Otho,  and  Heemes- 
kerke  and  Mostaert,  —  Mostaert,  a  refractory  spirit,  an  aborigine,  a 
gentleman  of  the  household  of  Margaret  of  Austria,  who  painted  all 
the  important  personages  of  his  time,  a  genre  painter  remarkably 
tinged  with  history  and  legend,  who  in  two  episodes  of  the  life  of 
St.  Benedict  represents  the  interior  of  a  kitchen,  and  paints  for  us, 
as  they  did  a  hundred  years  later,  the  familiar  domestic  life  of  his 


THE  MUSEUM  AT  BRUSSELS.  13 

time,  —  Heemeskerke,  a  pure  apostle  of  linear  forms,  dry,  angular, 
glaring,  blackish,  who  cuts  out  of  hard  steel  his  figures  vaguely  imi- 
tated from  Michael  Angelo. 

It  is  easy  to  mistake  a  Dutchman  for  a  Fleming.  At  that  date  it 
made  very  little  difference  on  which  side  of  the  Meuse  a  man  was 
born  ;  what  mattered,  was  to  know  if  such  a  painter  had  or  had  not 
tasted  the  troubled  waters  of  the  Arno  or  the  Tiber.  Had  he  or 
had  he  not  visited  Italy  ?  Everything  is  in  that,  and  nothing  can  be 
stranger  than  this  mingling,  in  large  or  small  doses,  of  Italian  culture 
and  persistent  Germanisms,  of  a  foreign  tongue  and  the  indelible 
local  accent  which  characterizes  this  school  of  Italo-Flemish  mon- 
grels. Journeys  are  in  vain  ;  something  is  changed,  but  the  substratum 
exists.  The  style  is  new,  movement  is  to  be  found  in  the  grouping, 
a  hint  of  chiaroscuro  begins  to  dawn  upon  palettes,  nudities  appear 
in  an  art  hitherto  wholly  clothed  and  costumed  according  to  local 
fashions,  the  height  of  personages  increases,  the  groups  are  more 
numerous,  the  pictures  more  crowded,  fancy  mingles  with  the  myths, 
an  unbridled  picturesqueness  is  combined  with  history ;  it  is  the 
moment  of  Last  Judgments,  satanic  and  apocalyptic  conceptions, 
and  grimacing  deviltries.  The  imagination  of  the  North  yields 
with  joyful  heart,  and  gives  itself  over,  in  the  whimsical  or  in  the 
terrible,  to  extravagances  which  Italian  art  never  suspected. 

In  the  first  place,  nothing  deranges  the  methodical  and  tenacious 
foundation  of  Flemish  genius.  Execution  remains  precise,  sharp, 
minute,  and  crystalline  :  the  hand  remembers  having  not  long  since 
manipulated  polished  and  dense  substances ;  recalls  the  chiselling  of 


14          THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

copper,  the  enamelling  of  gold,  the  melting  and  coloring  of  glass. 
Then  gradually  the  trade  changes,  the  coloring  is  broken,  the  tone 
is  divided  into  lights  and  shades  ;  it  becomes  iridescent,  preserves 
its  substance  in  the  folds  of  stuffs,  evaporates  and  whitens  at  each 
salient  point.  Painting  becomes  less  solid,  and  color  of  less  con- 
sistency, in  proportion  as  it  loses  the  conditions  of  force  and  bril- 
liancy which  came  from  its  unity  ;  it  is  the  Florentine  method  which 
begins  to  disorganize  the  rich  and  homogeneous  Flemish  palette. 
This  first  ravage  well  established,  the  evil  makes  rapid  progress.  In 
spite  of  the  docility  with  which  it  follows  the  Italian  teaching,  the 
Flemish  spirit  is  not  supple  enough  to  bend  entirely  to  such  lessons. 
It  takes  what  it  can,  not  always  the  best,  and  something  ever  es- 
capes it,  —  either  the  method  when  it  tries  to  seize  the  style,  or  the 
style  when  it  succeeds  in  approaching  the  method.  After  Florence, 
Rome  dominates  it,  and  at  the  same  time  Venice.  At  Venice  the 
influences  which  it  undergoes  are  singular. 

One  can  hardly  perceive  that  the  Flemish  painters  have  studied 
the  Bellini,  Giorgione,  or  Titian.  Tintoretto,  on  the  contrary,  has 
visibly  impressed  them.  They  find  in  him  something  grandiose,  a 
movement,  and  a  muscularity,  which  tempt  them,  and  a  certain  tran- 
sitional coloring,  from  which  that  of  Veronese  will  separate  itself, 
and  which  seems  to  them  more  useful  to  consult  for  '-the  purpose  of 
discovering  the  elements  of  their  own.  They  borrow  from  him  two 
or  three  tones,  his  yellow  especially,  with  the  manner  of  accompany- 
ing them.  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  in  these  disconnected  imitations 
there  are  not  only  many  incoherences,  but  striking  anachronisms. 


THE  MUSEUM  AT  BRUSSELS.  15 

They  adopt  more  and  more  the  Italian  fashion,  and  yet  they  wear  it 
ill.  An  inconsequence,  a  badly  assorted  detail,  an  odd  combination 
of  two  manners  which  do  not  go  well  together,  continue  to  manifest 
the  rebellious  side  of  the  natures  of  these  incorrigible  scholars.  In 
the  full  tide  of  the  Italian  decadence,  on  the  eve  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  there  are  found  still  among  these  Italo-Flemings  men  of  the 
past  who  seem  never  to  have  remarked  that  the  Renascence  was 
over  and  done.  They  inhabit  Italy,  and  only  follow  its  evolu- 
tions from  afar.  Whether  from  inability  to  understand  things,  or 
from  native  stiffness  and  obstinacy,  there  seems  to  be  one  side  of 
their  minds  which  resists,  and  will  not  be  cultivated.  An  Italo- 
Fleming  is  invariably  far  behind  the  Italian  time  of  day,  which 
explains  why  during  the  life  of  Rubens  his  master  hardly  walked  in 
the  steps  of  Raphael. 

While  in  historical  painting  some  are  belated,  elsewhere  there  are 
some  who  divine  the  future,  and  are  in  advance.  I  speak  not  only 
of  the  elder  Breughel,  the  inventor  of  genre  painting,  a  terrible 
genius,  an  original  master  if  ever  there  was  one,  father  of  a  school 
to  come,  who  died  without  having  seen  his  sons,  yet  whose  sons 
are  his  very  own.  The  museum  of  Brussels  makes  us  recognize  an 
unknown  painter  of  uncertain  name,  recognized  by  sobriquets :  in 
Flanders  he  is  called  Henri  met  de  Bles,  or  de  Blesse,  the  man 
with  the  tuft ;  in  Italy,  Civetta,  because  his  pictures,  now  very  rare, 
have  an  owl  in  place  of  a  signature.  A  picture  by  this  Henri  de 
Bles,  a  Temptation  of  St.  Anthony,  is  a  most  unexpected  work, 
with  its  bottle-green  and  black-green  landscape,  its  bituminous 


1 6         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

ground,  its  sky  of  light  Prussian  blue,  its  audacious  and  ingenious 
masses  of  color,  the  terrible  black,  which  serves  for  background 
to  the  two  nude  figures,  and  its  chiaroscuro  so  boldly  obtained 
with  a  clear  sky.  This  enigmatic  painting,  which  savors  of  Italy, 
and  announces  what  Breughel  and  Rubens  will  be  later,  in  their 
landscapes,  reveals  a  skilful  painter,  and  a  man  impatient  to  antici- 
pate the  hour. 

Of  all  these  painters  more  or  less  disacclimated,  of  all  these 
Romanists,  as  they  were  called  on  their  return  into  Antwerp  society, 
Italy  not  on-ly  made  skilful,  copious  artists,  of  great  experience, 
of  true  knowledge,  especially  of  great  aptitude  for  diffusion  and  for 
vulgarizing  (I  ask  their  pardon  for  the  word,  it  being  used  in  its 
double  signification),  but  she  also  gave  them  the  taste  for  multifa- 
rious methods.  According  to  the  example  of  their  own  masters, 
they  became  architects  and  engineers  and  poets.  To-day  this  fine 
fire  causes  a  slight  smile  at  the  thought  of  the  sincere  masters  who 
preceded  them,  and  the  inspired  master  who  was  to  follow  them. 

They  were  brave  men,  who  worked  for  the  culture  of  their  time, 
and  unconsciously  for  the  progress  of  their  school.  They  went  away, 
enriched  themselves,  and  returned  home  like  emigrants  whose  sav- 
ings are  made  with  a  view  to  the  fatherland.  Some  of  them  were 
very  secondary,  and  local  history  itself  might  forget  them  if  they 
did  not  all  follow  each  other  from  father  to  son,  and  if  genealogy 
were  not  in  such  cases  the  only  means  of  estimating  the  utility 
of  those  who  seek,  and  of  understanding  the  sudden  grandeur  of 
those  who  find. 


THE  MUSEUM  AT  BRUSSELS.  IJ 

To  sum  up,  a  school  had  disappeared,  that  of  Bruges.  Aided  by 
politics,  war,  journeys,  and  all  the  active  elements  which  compose 
the  physical  and  moral  character  of  a  people,  another  school  was 
formed  at  Antwerp  ;  ultramontane  beliefs  inspired  it,  ultramontane 
art  advised  it,  princes  encouraged  it,  all  national  needs  called  for 
it.  It  was  at  once  very  active  and  very  undecided,  very  brilliant, 
astonishingly  fruitful,  and  almost  obscure  ;  it  was  metamorphosed 
from  top  to  bottom,  so  as  to  be  no  longer  recognizable,  until  it 
arrived  at  its  decisive  and  final  incarnation  in  a  man  born  to  bend 
to  all  the  needs  of  his  age  and  of  his  country,  nourished  by  all 
schools,  and  who  was  the  most  original  expression  of  his  own,  that 
is  to  say,  the  most  Flemish  of  all  Flemings. 

Otho  Vcenius  is  placed  in  the  museum  of  Brussels  immediately 
beside  his  great  pupil.  It  is  towards  those  two  inseparable  names 
that  we  must  tend  if  we  would  draw  any  conclusion  from  what  pre- 
cedes. They  are  seen  from  the  whole  horizon,  the  former  concealed 
in  the  glory  of  the  other;  and  if  I  have  not  named  them  twenty 
times  already,  you  should  be  grateful  for  the  effort  I  have  made  to 
induce  you  to  expect  them. 


II 

THE  MASTERS   OF  RUBENS. 

IT  is  known  that  Rubens  had  three  teachers, — that  he  began 
his  studies  with  a  well-known  landscape-painter,  Tobias  Verhaegt ; 
that  he  continued  them  with  Adam  Van  Noort,  and  ended  them 
with  Otho  Vcenius.  Of  these  three  professors,  there  are  but  two 
with  whom  history  concerns  itself,  and  it  still  accords  to  Vcenius 
almost  all  the  honor  of  this  great  education,  one  of  the  finest  from 
which  a  master  has  ever  gained  fame,  because  in  fact  Voenius 
directed  his  pupil  until  he  attained  his  majority,  and  was  not 
separated  from  him  till  the  age  when  Rubens  was  already  a  man, 
and,  at  least  in  talent,  already  a  great  man.  As  to  Van  Noort, 
we  learn  that  he  was  a  painter  of  real  but  fantastic  originality, 
who  was  very  harsh  with  his  pupils.  In  his  studio  Rubens  spent 
four  years ;  but  he  disliked  him,  and  found  in  Vcenius  a  master 
of  more  compatible  temper.  ThJ*  is  about  all  that  is  said  of  this 
intermediary  director,  who  held  this  child  in  his  hands  precisely 
at  the  age  when  youth  is  most  susceptible  to  impressions  ;  but 
according  to  my  idea  this  hardly  accounts  for  the  influence  he 
must  have  had  upon  this  young  mind. 


THE  MASTERS  OF  RUBENS.  19 

If  from  Verhaegt  Rubens  learned  the  elements,  if  Voenius  in- 
structed him  in  the  humanities,  Van  Noort  did  something  more  ; 
he  showed  him  in  his  own  person  a  character  wholly  individual, 
an  unconquerable  organization,  in  short,  the  sole  contemporary 
painter  who  remained  a  Fleming  when  every  one  in  Flanders 
had  ceased  to  be  one. 

Nothing  is  so  singular  as  the  contrast  afforded  by  these  two 
men,  so  different  in  character  and  consequently  so  opposite  in 
their  influence,  and  nothing  is  more  curious  than  the  destiny  which 
led  them  in  succession  to  concur  in  that  delicate  task,  the  edu- 
cation of  a  child  of  genius.  Remark  that  by  their  disparities 
they  corresponded  precisely  to  the  contrasts  of  which  was  formed 
this  multifarious  nature,  as  circumspect  as  it  was  bold.  Isolated,  they 
represent  its  contrary  elements,  that  is,  its  incongruities  ;  together, 
they  reconstitute,  minus  the  genius,  the  whole  man  with  all  his 
forces,  his  harmony,  his  equilibrium,  and  his  unity. 

Now,  when  we  understand  the  genius  of  Rubens  in  its  plenitude, 
and  the  contradictory  talents  of  his  two  instructors,  it  is  easy  to 
perceive,  I  do  not  say  the  one  who  has  given  the  wisest  counsels, 
but  which  of  the  two  has  most  vividly  moved  him,  —  the  man  who 
appealed  to  his  reason,  or  the  one  who  addressed  his  tempera- 
ment ;  the  irreproachable  painter  who  exalted  Italy  to  him,  or  the 
man  of  the  soil  who  perhaps  showed  him  what  he  might  one  day 
be,  by  remaining  the  greatest  of  his  own  nation.  In  any  case 
there  is  one  whose  action  is  explained  but  scarcely  seen,  and 
another  whose  influence  is  manifest  without  being  explained ;  and 


20          THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

if  a  man  be  absolutely  determined  to  recognize  some  family 
feature  in  this  face  so  markedly  individual,  I  can  see  but  one 
which  has  the  character  and  persistency  of  an  hereditary  trait, 
and  this  characteristic  comes  from  Van  Noort.  And  now  I  will 
say  what  I  have  to  express  concerning  Vcenius,  claiming  for  a 
man  too  much  forgotten  the  right  to  figure  at  Rubens's  side. 

This  Vcenius  was  no  ordinary  man.  Without  Rubens  he  would 
find  it  difficult  to  sustain  the  renown  he  has  in  history ;  but  at  least 
the  lustre  from  his  disciple  illumines  a  noble  figure,  a  personage  of 
distinguished  mien,  of  lofty  birth,  of  high  culture,  a  learned,  some- 
times even  an  original  painter  from  the  variety  of  his  knowledge, 
and  from  a  talent  almost  natural,  his  excellent  education  forming 
a  part  of  his  nature,  the  result  being  a  man  and  an  artist  each 
as  admirably  trained  as  the  other.  He  had  visited  Florence, 
Rome,  Venice,  and  Parma,  and  certainly  it  was  in  Rome  and 
Venice  and  Parma  that  he  spent  the  longest  time.  A  Roman  in 
his  scrupulousness,  a  Venetian  in  his  taste,  a  Parmesan  above  all, 
from  affinities  which  are  more  rarely  revealed,  but  which  are  most 
intimate  and  true,  at  Rome  and  in  Venice  he  had  found  two 
schools  constituted  like  no  other  ;  at  Parma  he  met  one  isolated 
creator,  without  relations,  without  doctrines,  who  did  not  even 
pride  himself  on  being  a  master.  Had  he,  on  account  of  his 
differences,  more  respect  for  Raphael,  more  sensuous  ardor  for 
Veronese  and  Titian,  more  tenderness  at  bottom  for  Correggio  ? 
This  I  believe.  His  successful  compositions  are  a  little  trivial, 
rather  empty,  rarely  imaginative ;  and  the  elegance  he  derives  from 


THE  MASTERS  OF  RUBENS.  21 

nature  and  his  association  with  the  best  masters  as  with  the  best 
company,  the  uncertainty  of  his  convictions  and  preferences,  the 
impersonal  force  of  his  coloring,  his  draperies  destitute  of  truth 
and  of  grandeur  of  style,  his  untypical  heads,  his  winy  tones 
lacking  in  great  warmth, — all  these  suggestions,  full  of  good 
breeding,  would  give  of  him  the  impression  of  a  mind  accom- 
plished, but  mediocre.  He  might  be  called  an  excellent  court 
master,  who  teaches  admirably  lessons  too  admirable  and  powerful 
for  himself.  He  is,  however,  something  much  better  than  that, 
and  as  proof  of  it,  I  only  need  his  Mystical  Marriage  of  St.  Cath- 
erine, which  is  found  in  the  Brussels  Museum  on  the  right,  above 
the  Magi  of  Rubens. 

This  picture  struck  me  forcibly.  It  was  painted  in  1589,  and 
is  penetrated  with  that  Italian  substance  on  which  the  painter  had 
been  profoundly  nurtured.  At  this  time  Vcenius  was  thirty-three 
years  old.  On  his  return  to  his  own  country  he  took  the  first 
rank  as  architect  and  painter  to  Prince  Alexander  of  Parma. 
From  his  family  picture,  which  is  in  the  Louvre  and  which  dates 
from  1584,  to  this,  —  that  is,  in  five  years,  —  the  stride  is  enor- 
mous. It  seems  as  if  his  Italian  memories  had  slumbered  during 
his  sojourn  at  Liege  with  the  Princfe  Bishop,  and  were  revived  at 
the  Court  of  Farnese.  This  picture,  the  best  and  most  surprising 
produced  from  all  the  lessons  he  had  learned,  has  this  in  par- 
ticular :  it  reveals  a  man  behind  many  influences,  it  indicates  at 
least  in  what  direction  his  native  inclinations  lead,  and  we  learn 
from  it  what  he  desired  to  do,  while  seeing  most  distinctly  what 


22          THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

inspired  him.  I  will  not  describe  it,  but,  the  subject  seeming  to 
me  to  deserve  that  one  should  pause  before  it,  I  took  some  run- 
ning notes  which  I  here  transcribe. 

"  More  opulent,  more  supple,  less  Roman,  although  at  the  first 
glance  the  tone  remains  Roman.  From  a  certain  tenderness  of 
type,  an  arbitrary  crumpling  of  stuffs,  a  little  mannerism  in  the 
hands,  we  feel  Correggio  introduced  into  Raphael.  There  are 
angels  in  the  sky  who  make  a  pleasing  spot ;  a  dark  yellow 
drapery  in  half-tint  is  thrown,  like  a  tent  with  folds  turned  back, 
across  the  branches  of  the  trees.  The  Christ  is  charming ;  the 
young  and  slender  St.  Elizabeth  is  adorable.  She  has  the  cast- 
down  eyes,  the  chaste  and  infantile  profile,  the  pretty  well-turned 
neck,  the  candid  air  of  Raphael's  virgins,  humanized  by  an  inspira- 
tion from  Correggio,  and  by  a  marked  personal  sentiment.  The 
blond  hair  which  melts  into  the  blond  flesh,  the  grayish  white 
linens  which  lead  into  each  other,  the  colors  shadowy  or  marked, 
which  melt  or  are  distinguished  very  capriciously  according  to 
new  laws,  and  according  to  the  author's  proper  fancy,  all  these 
are  pure  Italian  blood  transfused  into  veins  capable  of  turning 
them  into  new  blood.  All  this  prepares  for  Rubens,  whom  it  an- 
nounces, and  towards  whom  ft  leads. 

"Certainly  there  is  in  the  Marriage  of  St.  Catherine  enough 
to  enlighten  and  urge  forward  a  mind  of  such  delicacy,  a  tempera- 
ment of  such  ardor.  From  his  Italian  souvenirs  Voenius  derived 
these  elements,  this  arrangement,  the  spots  of  color  ;  this  bend- 
ing, waving  chiaroscuro ;  this  yellow,  no  longer  Tintoretto's,  though 


THE  MASTERS  OF  RUBENS.  23 

derived  from  it;  the  pearly  flesh,  no  longer  the  pulp  of  Correggio, 
although  it  has  its  savor;  this  thinner  skin,,  this  colder  flesh,  a 
more  feminine  grace  or  a  more  local  femininity  ;  an  entirely  Italian 
background,  from  which,  however,  the  warmth  has  departed,  and 
in  which  the  red  principle  gives  way  to  the  green  principle,  with 
an  infinitely  greater  caprice  in  the  disposition  of  shadows,  and  a 
light  more  diffused,  and  less  rigorously  submitted  to  the  arabesques 
of  form.  It  is  but  a  slight  effort  at  acclimation,  but  the  effort  ex- 
ists. Rubens,  for  whom  nothing  was  lost,  must  have  found,  when 
he  went  to  Vcenius  seven  years  later,  in  1596,  the  example  of  a 
style  of  painting  already  very  eclectic  and  passably  emancipated. 
It  is  more  than  one  would  expect  from  Vcenius,  and  enough  that 
Rubens  should  be  indebted  to  him  for  a  moral  influence,  if  not  a 
decided  impression." 

As  can  be  seen,  Vcenius  had  more  exterior  than  depth,  more 
order  than  native  richness,  and  an  excellent  education  ;  but  he 
lacked  ardor,  and  had  not  a  shadow  of  genius.  He  gave  good 
examples,  being  himself  a  good  example  of  what  may  be  produced  in 
all  things  by  good  birth,  a  well-trained  mind,  a  supple  comprehension, 
an  active  and  mobile  will,  and  a  peculiar  aptitude  for  submission. 

Van  Noort  was  the  counterpart  of  Voenius.  He  was  wanting 
in  almost  all  that  Voenius  had  acquired  ;  he  naturally  possessed  what 
Voenius  lacked.  He  had  neither  culture,  nor  politeness,  nor  ele- 
gance, nor  style,  nor  submissiveness,  nor  balance ;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  real  gifts  and  vivid  gifts.  Savage,  hasty,  violent,  unpolished, 
just  as  nature  had  made  him,  he  never  ceased  to  be  either  in  his 
conduct  or  his  works. 


24          THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

He  was  a  man  all  of  a  piece,  of  pure  impulse ;  perhaps  an  ignorant 
man,  but  a  somebody,  —  the  opposite  of  Voenius,  the  opposite  of 
an  Italian,  —  a  Fleming  in  race  and  temperament,  who  remained  a 
Fleming.  With  Vcenius  he  represented  marvellously  the  two  ele- 
ments, native  and  foreign,  which  for  a  hundred  years  had  divided 
the  mind  of  Flanders,  one  almost  wholly  stifling  the  other.  In 
manner,  and  allowing  for  the  difference  of  epoch,  he  was  the  last 
offshoot  of  the  strong  national  stem  of  which  the  Van  Eycks, 
Memling,  Quentin  Matsys,  the  elder  Breughel,  and  all  the  portrait 
painters  had  been,  according  to  the  spirit  of  each  age,  the  natural 
and  vigorous  product. 

Changed  as  was  the  old  German  blood  in  the  veins  of  the  eru- 
dite Vcenius,  it  flowed  rich,  pure,  and  abundant  in  this  strong, 
uncultivated  organization.  In  his  tastes,  his  instincts,  his  habits, 
Van  Noort  belonged  to  the  people.  He  had  their  brutality,  even,  it 
is  said,  their  love  of  wine,  their  loud  voice,  their  coarse  but  frank 
language,  their  ill-taught  and  rough  sincerity,  —  everything,  in  a  word, 
except  their  good-humor.  A  stranger  to  society  as  well  as  to  acad- 
emies, no  more  polished  in  one  sense  than  in  another,  but  absolutely 
a  painter  by  his  imaginative  faculties,  by  the  eye  and  by  the  hand  ; 
rapid,  alert,  of  undisturbed  self-possession,  he  had  two  motives 
for  daring  all,  —  he  knew  that  he  was  capable  of  doing  everything 
without  any  one's  help,  and  he  had  no  scruples  about  his  own  ig- 
norance. 

To  judge  by  his  works,  now  become  very  rare,  and  by  the  little 
that  remains  to  us  of  a  laborious  career  of  eighty-four  years,  he  loved 


THE  MASTERS  OF  RUBENS.  2$ 

what  in  his  country  was  scarcely  esteemed  longer,  —  an  action,  even 
heroic,  expressed  in  its  crude  reality  apart  from  any  ideal,  whether 
mystical  or  pagan.  He  loved  sanguine  and  ill-combed  men,  gray- 
beards  tanned  and  aged,  hardened  by  rude  labor,  with  shining 
thick  hair,  unkempt  beards,  veined  necks,  and  broad  shoulders. 
In  handling  he  delighted  in  strong  accents,  showy  colors,  great 
clearness  in  powerful  and  inharmonious  tones,  the  whole  but  little 
blended,  painted  broadly,  glowing,  shining,  and  rippling.  His  touch 
was  impatient,  sure,  and  true.  He  had  a  way  of  striking  the  can- 
vas and  imprinting  upon  it  a  tone  rather  than  a  form,  which  made 
it  resound  under  the  brush.  He  massed  many  stout  figures  in 
a  little  space,  disposed  them  in  abundant  groups,  and  drew  from 
numbers  a  general  relief  which  added  to  the  individual  relief  of 
things.  Everything  that  could  shine,  shone,  —  brow,  temples,  mus- 
taches, the  white  of  the  eye,  the  edge  of  the  eyelid  ;  and  by  this 
fashion  of  rendering  the  action  of  vivid  light  upon  the  blood,  the 
moisture  and  gleam  contracted  by  the  skin  from  the  heat  of  day 
which  burns  it,  by  much  red,  intensified  by  much  silver,  he  gave 
to  all  his  personages  a  certain  most  pronounced  activity,  and,  so  to 
speak,  the  appearance  of  being  in  a  sweat. 

If  these  traits  are  exact,  —  and  I  believe  them  to  be  so,  from  hav- 
ing observed  them  in  a  very  characteristic  work,  —  it  is  impossible  to 
misunderstand  what  an  influence  such  a  man  must  have  had  upon 
Rubens.  The  pupil  certainly  had  a  good  deal  of  the  master  in  his 
blood.  He  had  indeed  almost  everything  which  makes  the  origi- 
nality of  his  master,  but  also  many  other  gifts  in  addition,  whence 


26         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

result  the  extraordinary  plenitude,  and  the  not  less  extraordinary 
temper  of  his  fine  mind.  Rubens,  it  has  been  written,  was  tranquil 
and  lucid,  which  means  that  his  lucidity  arose  from  an  imperturbable 
good  sense,  and  his  tranquillity  from  the  most  admirable  equilibrium 
which  has  perhaps  ever  reigned  in  a  brain. 
1  But  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  there  exist  between  him  and  Van 

; 

'Noort  evident  family  relations.  If  that  were  doubted,  one  need 
only  look  at  Jordaens,  his  co-disciple  and  his  substitute.  With  age, 
with  education,  the  traits  of  which  I  speak  were  all  to  disappear 
in  Rubens,  but  in  Jordaens  they  have  existed  underneath  his  ex- 
treme resemblance  to  Rubens,  so  that  to-day  it  is  by  the  relation- 
ship of  the  two  pupils  that  one  can  recognize  the  original  marks 
which  unite  both  to  their  common  master.  Jordaens  would  cer- 
tainly have  been  quite  other  had  he  not  had  Van  Noort  for  an 
instructor  and  Rubens  for  a  constant  model.  Without  that  in- 
structor would  Rubens  have  been  all  that  he  is?  and  would  not 
one  accent  have  been  wanting  to  him,  —  that  plebeian  accent  which 
attaches  him  to  the  very  heart  of  his  people,  thanks  to  which  he 
has  been  understood  as  well  by  them  as  by  delicate  minds  and 
princes  ?  However  that  may  be,  Nature  seems  to  have  been 
groping  when  from  1557  to  1581  she  sought  the  mould  in  which 
to  melt  the  elements  of  modern  art  in  Flanders.  It  may  be  said 
that  she  tried  Van  Noort,  that  she  hesitated  before  Jordaens,  and 
that  she  only  found  what  she  wanted  in  Rubens. 

We  have  now  reached    1600.     Henceforth    Rubens   had   enough 
force   to  be  independent  of  a  master,  but  not  of  masters.     He  de- 


THE  MASTERS  OF  RUBENS.  27 

parted  for  Italy,  and  what  he  did  there  is  known.  He  sojourned 
there  eight  years,  from  the  age  of  twenty-three  to  thirty-one  years. 
He  stopped  at  Mantua,  preluded  his  embassy  by  a  journey  to  the 
Court  of  Spain,  returned  to  Mantua,  went  to  Rome,  then  to  Florence, 
then  to  Venice,  then  from  Rome  he  went  to  settle  at  Genoa.  There 
he  beheld  princes,  became  celebrated,  —  there  took  possession  of 
his  talent,  his  glory,  and  his  fortune.  After  the  death  of  his  mother 
he  returned  to  Antwerp  in  1609,  and  made  himself  recognized  with- 
out difficulty  as  the  first  master  of  his  age. 


III. 

RUBENS  IN  THE  BRUSSELS  MUSEUM. 

IF  I  were  writing  the  history  of  Rubens,  it  would  not  be  here  that 
I  should  compose  the  first  chapter.  I  should  look  for  Rubens  in  his 
very  beginnings,  in  his  pictures  anterior  to  1609,  or  else  I  should 
choose  some  marked  period,  and  from  Antwerp  follow  this  career, 
which  is  so  direct  that  the  undulations  of  the  widely  developing 
nature  can  scarcely  be  perceived,  as  it  increases  its  extent  without 
the  uncertainties  and  contradictions  of  a  mind  which  seeks  its  way. 
But  remember  that  I  am  only  turning  the  leaves  of  an  impercepti- 
ble fragment  of  this  immense  work.  Detached  pages  of  his  life  are 
offered  by  chance,  and  I  accept  them  thus.  Everywhere,  moreover, 
that  Rubens  is  represented  by  a  good  picture,  he  is  present,  I  will  not 
say  in  all  parts  of  his  talent,  but  certainly  in  at  least  one  of  the 
finest. 

The  museum  at  Brussels  has  seven  of  his  important  pictures,  a 
sketch,  and  four  portraits.  If  this  is  not  enough  to  measure  Rubens, 
it  suffices  to  give  a  grand,  varied,  and  just  idea  of  his  value.  With 
his  master,  his  contemporaries,  his  co-disciples,  or  his  friends,  he  fills 
the  last  division  of  the  gallery,  and  there  sheds  abroad  that  restrained 


RUBENS  IN  THE  BRUSSELS  MUSEUM.  29 

brilliancy,  and  that  soft  and  powerful  radiance  which  are  the  grace  of 
his  genius.  There  is  no  pedantry,  no  affectation  of  vain  grandeur  or 
of  offensive  pride,  but  he  is  naturally  imposing.  Give  him  for  neigh- 
bors the  most  overpowering  and  contrary  works,  and  the  effect  is  the 
same.  He  extinguishes  those  which  resemble  him,  silences  those 
which  attempt  to  contradict  him  ;  from  afar  he  makes  his  presence 
consciously  felt,  he  isolates  himself,  and  wherever  he  may  be  he  is 
at  home. 

These  pictures,  though  undated,  are  evidently  of  very  diverse 
periods.  Many  years  separate  the  Assumption  of  the  Virgin  from 
the  two  dramatic  canvases,  St.  Lieven,  and  Christ  ascending  Cal- 
vary. Not  that  in  Rubens  are  seen  those  striking  changes  which 
mark,  in  the  greater  part  of  painters,  the  passage  from  one  age  to 
another,  commonly  called  their  manners.  Rubens  ripened  too  early 
and  died  too  suddenly  to  have  his  paintings  preserve  visible  traces  of 
his  first  ingenuousness,  or  feel  the  least  effect  of  his  decline.  From 
his  youth  up  he  was  himself.  He  had  found  his  style,  his  form, 
almost  his  types,  and  once  for  all  the  elementary  principles  of  his 
craft.  Later,  with  experience,  he  acquired  still  more  liberty  ;  his 
palette,  while  it  grew  richer,  became  more  temperate ;  he  obtained 
greater  results  with  less  effort,  and  his  extreme  boldness,  when  ex- 
amined, reveals  at  bottom  perfect  moderation,  the  knowledge,  the 
wisdom,  and  the  pertinence  of  a  consummate  master,  who  is  as  con- 
tained as  he  is  free.  He  began  by  working  rather  thinly  and 
smoothly  and  vividly.  His  color,  pearly  in  surface,  was  more  glit- 
tering and  less  resonant,  the  under  tints  were  less  well  chosen,  the 


30         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

substance  less  delicate  or  less  deep.  He  feared  a  negative  tone,  not 
suspecting  the  learned  use  of  it  that  he  should  one  day  make. 

Even  at  the  end  of  his  life,  in  full  maturity,  that  is,  in  the  full 
effervescence  of  brain  and  method,  he  returned  to  this  studied  man- 
ner, which  is  relatively  timid.  Therefore  in  his  little  anecdotic 
genre  pictures  made  with  his  friend  Breughel  to  amuse  his  later 
years,  there  is  no  longer  to  be  recognized  the  powerful  hand,  un- 
bridled or  refined,  which  painted  at  the  same  epoch  the  Martyrdom 
of  St.  Lieven,  the  Magi  of  the  Antwerp  Museum,  or  the  St.  George 
of  the  Church  of  St.  Jacques.  The  spirit  in  truth  never  changed  ; 
and  if  one  would  follow  the  progress  of  age,  it  is  the  man  who 
must  be  considered  rather  than  the  attractions  of  his  thought ;  his 
palette  must  be  analyzed,  his  method  studied,  and  above  all  only 
his  great  works  must  be  consulted. 

The  Assumption  corresponds  to  this  first  period,  since  it  would  be 
inexact  to  say  his  first  manner.  This  picture  has  been  much  re- 
touched, and  though  we  are  assured  that  on  this  account  it  loses  a 
large  part  of  its  merit,  I  cannot  see  that  it  has  lost  that  which  I  am 
seeking.  It  is  a  page  at  once  brilliant  and  cold,  inspired  in  render- 
ing, methodical  and  prudent  in  execution.  It  is  like  the  pictures  of 
that  date,  polished,  clean  in  surface,  a  trifle  glassy.  The  common- 
place types  lack  naturalness  ;  the  palette  of  Rubens  resounds  already 
with  certain  dominant  notes,  red,  yellow,  black,  and  gray,  brilliant 
but  crude.  These  are  its  insufficiencies.  As  to  merits  entirely  ac- 
quired, they  are  here  applied  in  a  masterly  way.  Great  figures  lean- 
ing over  the  empty  tomb,  all  the  colors  vibrating  over  a  black  opening, 


RUBENS  IN  THE  BRUSSELS  MUSEUM.  31 

the  light  spreading  from  a  central  point  of  brilliancy,  broad,  powerful, 
sonorous,  wavy,  dying  in  softest  half-tints  ;  on  the  right  and  left 
nothing  but  weak  points  except  two  accidental  spots,  two  horizontal 
strong  points  which  attach  the  scene  to  the  frame  half-way  up  the 
picture.  Below,  some  gray  steps  ;  above,  a  sky  of  Venetian  blue 
with  gray  clouds  and  flying  vapors,  and  in  this  shaded  azure,  her 
feet  buried  in  bluish  fleecy  clouds,  her  head  in  a  glory,  floats  the 
Virgin,  clothed  in  pale  blue,  with  a  dark  blue  mantle,  three  winged 
groups  of  angels  accompanying  her,  all  radiating  with  pearl  and  rose 
and  silver.  At  the  upper  angle,  just  touching  the  zenith,  a  little 
agile  cherub,  beating  his  wings,  shining  like  a  butterfly  in  the  light, 
mounts  directly  and  flies  through  the  open  heaven  like  a  swifter 
messenger  than  the  others.  Here  are  suppleness,  breadth,  depth  of 
grouping,  and  a  marvellous  union  of  the  picturesque  with  the  grand. 
In  spite  of  certain  imperfections  all  Rubens  is  here,  more  than  in 
embryo.  Nothing  can  be  more  tender,  more  frank,  or  more  striking. 
As  an  improvisation  of  happy  spots  of  color,  as  life,  as  a  harmony 
for  the  eye,  it  is  perfect,  —  a  summer  festival. 

Christ  in  the  -Lap  of  the  Virgin  is  a  much  later  work,  grave,  gray, 
and  black.  The  Virgin  is  in  sad  blue  ;  the  Magdalen  in  a  purple- 
black  garment.  The  canvas  has  suffered  much  from  transportation, 
either  in  1794,  when  it  was  sent  to  Paris,  or  in  1815,  when  it  returned. 
It  passed  for  one  of  the  finest  works  of  Rubens,  which  it  no  longer 
can  be  called.  I  confine  myself  to  transcribing  my  notes,  which  say 
enough. 

The  Magi  are  neither  the  first  nor  the  last  expression  of  a  subject 


32         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

that  Rubens  has  treated  many  times.  In  any  case,  in  whatever  rank 
they  are  classed  in  these  versions  developed  from  one  theme,  they 
follow  that  of  Paris,  and  very  certainly  they  precede  that  of  Mechlin, 
of  which  I  will  speak  further  on.  The  idea  is  ripe,  the  arrangement 
more  complete.  The  necessary  elements,  of  which  is  to  be  composed 
later  this  work  so  rich  in  transformations,  types,  and  personages,  with 
their  costumes  and  their  habitual  colors,  are  all  found  here,  playing 
the  rdle  designed  for  them,  occupying  in  the  scene  their  destined 
place.  It  is  a  vast  page,  conceived,  contained,  concentrated,  summed 
up,  like  an  easel  picture,  and  for  that  reason  less  decorative  than 
many  others.  It  has  a  great  clearness,  no  tiresome  neatness,  not 
one  of  the  chilling  drynesses  of  the  Assumption,  a  great  carefulness, 
with  the  maturity  of  most  perfect  knowledge.  The  whole  school  of 
Rubens  might  have  been  instructed  from  this  one  example. 

With  the  Ascent  of  Calvary,  it  is  quite  another  thing.  At  this 
date  Rubens  had  made  the  greater  part  of  his  great  works.  He  was 
no  longer  young ;  he  knew  everything  ;  he  could  only  have  lost,  if 
death,  which  protected  him,  had  not  removed  him  before  he  began 
to  fail.  Here  we  have  movement,  tumult,  agitation,  in  form,  in 
gesture,  in  countenances,  in  the  disposition  of  groups,  in  the  oblique 
light,  diagonal  and  symmetrical,  going  from  the  base  to  the  top 
and  from  right  to  left.  Christ  falling  under  his  cross,  the  escort  of 
horsemen,  the  two  thieves  held  and  driven  by  their  executioners, 
are  all  marching  in  the  same  line,  and  seem  to  climb  the  narrow 
ascent  which  leads  to  the  place  of  torture.  The  Christ  is  dying 
with  fatigue ;  St.  Veronica  is  wiping  his  brow ;  the  Virgin  in 


I 


RUBENS  IN  THE  BRUSSELS  MUSEUM.  33 

tears  rushes  towards  him,  extending  her  arms  to  him  ;  Simon  of 
Cyrene  bears  the  cross ;  —  and  in  spite  of  this  tree  of  infamy,  these 
women  in  tears  and  mourning,  this  struggling  victim  on  his  knees, 
whose  panting  mouth,  moist  temples,  and  haggard  eyes  excite  pity,  — 
in  spite  of  the  terror,  the  shouts,  the  near  approach  of  death,  it 
is  clear  to  him  who  can  see,  that  this  equestrian  pomp,  these 
floating  banners,  this  harnessed  centurion  turning  upon  his  horse 
with  a  noble  gesture,  in  whom  are  recognized  the  features  of 
Rubens,  —  all  these  cause  the  execution  to  be  forgotten,  and  give 
more  manifestly  the  impression  of  a  triumph.  . 

And  this  is  the  individual  logic  of  this  brilliant  mind.  It  might 
be  said  that  the  scene  is  comprehended  falsely,  —  that  it  is  melo- 
dramatic, without  gravity,  without  majesty,  without  beauty,  without 
august  character,  in  fine,  almost  theatrical.  The  picturesque,  which 
might  well  ruin  it,  is  what  saves  it.  Fancy  takes  possession  of  it, 
and  elevates  it.  A  gleam  of  true  sentiment  pierces  and  ennobles  it. 
Something  like  a  trait  of  eloquence  enhances  the  style.  Finally, 
there  is  an  inexpressible  fire,  an  admirably  inspired  enthusiasm,  which 
make  of  this  picture  exactly  what  it  ought  to  be,  —  a  picture  of 
trivial  death,  and  an  apotheosis.  I  find,  on  examination,  that  this 
picture  dates  from  1634.  I  was  not  mistaken  in  attributing  it  to 
the  last  and  finest  years  of  Rubens. 

Is  the  Martyrdom  of  St.  Lieven  of  the  same  epoch  ?  At  least 
it  is  in  the  same  style,  but  in  spite  of  something  terrible  in  the 
rendering,  it  has  more  liveliness  in  its  attraction,  its  method, 
and  its  color.  Rubens  thought  less  of  it  than  the  Calvary.  His 

3 


34         THE   OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

palette  was  gayer  at  that  time,  the  workman  more  rapid,  and  his 
brain  less  nobly  disposed.  Forget  that  this  is  an  ignoble  and 
savage  murder  of  a  holy  bishop  whose  tongue  has  just  been 
torn  out,  who  is  vomiting  blood,  and  writhing  in  agonizing  con- 
vulsions ;  forget  the  three  executioners  who  are  torturing  him, 
one  with  his  bloody  knife  between  his  teeth,  the  other  with  his 
heavy  pincers  holding  the  frightful  morsel  of  flesh  to  the  dogs ; 
look  only  at  the  white  horse  curveting  under  a  white  sky,  the 
golden  cope  of  the  bishop,  his  white  stole,  the  dogs  spotted  with 
black  and  white,  four  or  five  of  them  black,  the  two  red  caps, 
the  flushed  faces  with  ruddy  skins,  and  all  around  in  the  vast 
field  of  canvas  the  delicious  concert  of  gray  and  azure  and  pale 
or  dark  silver,  —  and  you  will  receive  only  the  sentiment  of  a 
radiant  harmony,  the  most  admirable  perhaps,  and  the  most  un- 
expected that  Rubens  ever  used  to  express,  or,  if  you  prefer,  to 
excuse,  a  scene  of  horror. 

Did  Rubens  seek  contrast?  Did  he  need  for  the  altar  which 
it  was  to  occupy  in  the  church  of  the  Jesuits  at  Ghent,  that 
this  picture  should  be  at  once  raging  and  celestial,  terrible  and 
smiling,  a  shuddering  horror  and  a  consolation  ?  I  think  that 
the  poetical  side  of  Rubens  adopted  quite  voluntarily  such  an- 
titheses. Even  if  he  did  not  think  of  it,  involuntarily  his  nature 
would  have  inspired  them.  It  is  well  from  the  beginning  to 
accustom  ourselves  to  these  contradictions  which  produce  an 
equilibrium,  and  constitute  an  exceptional  genius.  Here  are  much 
blood  and  physical  vigor,  but  a  winged  spirit,  a  man  who  fears 


RUBENS  IN  THE  BRUSSELS  MUSEUM.  35 

not  the  horrible  but  has  a  tender  and  truly  serene  soul;  here  are 
hideousnesses  and  brutalities,  a  total  absence  of  taste  in  form,  com- 
bined with  an  ardor  which  transforms  ugliness  into  force,  bloody 
brutality  into  terror.  This  desire  for  apotheosis  of  which  I  spoke 
in  the  Calvary,  he  carries  into  all  he  does.  If  well  understood, 
there  is  a  glory,  a  trumpet  call,  in  his  grossest  works.  He  is 
very  earthy,  more  earthy  than  any  of  the  masters  whose  equal 
he  is,  but  the  painter  comes  to  the  aid  of  the  draughtsman  and 
thinker,  and  sets  them  free.  Therefore  there  are  many  who  cannot 
follow  him  in  his  flights.  There  is  a  suspicion  of  an  imagination 
which  elevates  him,  but  what  is  seen  is  only  what  attaches  him 
below,  to  the  common,  the  too  real,  —  the  thick  muscles,  the  redun- 
dant or  careless  design,  the  heavy  types,  the  flesh,  and  the  blood 
just  under  the  skin.  And  yet  there  is  a  failure  to  perceive  that 
he  has  formulas,  a  style,  an  ideal,  and  that  these  superior  formu- 
las, this  style,  this  ideal,  are  in  his  palette. 

Add  to  this  his  special  gift  of  eloquence.  His  language,  to  de- 
fine it  accurately,  is  what  in  literature  is  called  oratorical.  When 
he  improvises,  he  is  not  at  his  best  ;  when  he  restrains  his  speech, 
it  is  magnificent.  It  is  prompt,  sudden,  abundant,  and  warm  ;  in  all 
circumstances  it  is  eminently  persuasive.  He  strikes,  astonishes,  re- 
pels you  ;  he  irritates,  but  almost  always  convinces  ;  and  if  there  is  a 
chance  for  it,  more  than  any  one  else  he  can  touch  you.  Certain  pic- 
tures of  Rubens  are  revolting,  but  there  are  some  that  bring  tears  to 
the  eyes,  and  such  an  influence  is  rare  in  all  schools.  He  has  the 
weaknesses,  the  digressions,  and  also  the  magnetic  fire  of  the  great 


36         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

orators.  He  sometimes  perorates  and  declaims,  he  beats  the  air 
with  his  huge  arms,  but  there  are  words  he  can  speak  as  no  other 
man  can.  In  general,  his  ideas  are  such  as  can  only  be  expressed 
by  eloquence,  by  pathetic  gesture  and  sonorous  utterance. 

Remark  also  that  he  paints  for  walls,  for  altars  to  be  seen  from 
the  nave ;  that  he  speaks  for  a  vast  audience ;  that  consequently 
he  must  be  heard  from  afar,  must  strike  a  long  way  off,  seize 
and  charm  from  a  distance,  whence  results  the  necessity  of  in- 
sisting, of  enlarging  methods,  of  increasing  the  volume  of  sound. 
There  are  laws  of  perspective,  and  so  to  speak  of  acoustics,  which 
preside  over  this  solemn  art,  of  such  immense  range. 

It  is  to  this  kind  of  declamatory  and  incorrect,  but  very  moving 
eloquence,  that  belongs  his  Christ  coming  to  judge  the  World.  The 
earth  is  a  prey  to  vices  and  crimes,  to  conflagrations,  assassinations, 
and  violence;  the  idea  of  these  human  perversities  being  rendered 
by  a  bit  of  animated  landscape  such  as  Rubens  alone  can  paint. 

Christ  appears  armed  with  thunderbolts,  half  flying,  half  march- 
ing ;  and  while  he  prepares  to  punish  this  abominable  world,  a  poor 
monk  in  his  woollen  robe  implores  mercy,  and  covers  with  his  two 
arms  an  azure  globe,  around  which  is  twined  a  serpent.  Does  the 
prayer  of  the  saint  suffice?  No.  Then  the  Virgin,  a  tall  woman 
in  widow's  weeds,  throws  herself  before  Christ  and  arrests  him. 
She  neither  implores,  nor  prays,  nor  commands  ;  she  is  before 
her  God,  but  she  addresses  her  Son.  Opening  her  black  robe, 
she  uncovers  her  large  immaculate  bosom,  which  she  touches  with 
her  hand,  displaying  it  to  him  whom  it  has  nourished.  The  apos- 


RUBENS  IN  THE  BRUSSELS  MUSEUM.  37 

trophe  is  irresistible.  Everything  may  be  criticised  in  this  purely 
passionate  picture,  painted  without  retouching:  the  Christ,  who  is 
only  ridiculous ;  the  St.  Francis,  who  is  but  a  terrified  monk  ;  the 
Virgin,  who  resembles  a  Hecuba  with  the  features  of  Helen  Four- 
ment,  —  even  her  gesture  is  not  without  boldness,  if  one  remembers 
ithe  taste  of  Raphael,  or  even  the  taste  of  Racine.  But  I  believe 
it  is  none  the  less  true  that  neither  at  the  theatre  nor  on  the 
tribune,  —  and  this  picture  recalls  both,  —  nor  in  painting,  which  is 
its  true  domain,  have  been  found  so  many  pathetic  effects  from 
such  vigor  and  such  novelty. 

I  neglect  —  and  Rubens  will  lose  nothing  thereby — the  Assump- 
tion of  the  Virgin,  a  picture  without  a  soul ;  and  Venus  in  the  Forge 
of  Vulcan,  a  canvas  too  closely  related  to  Jordaens.  I  pass  over 
likewise  the  portraits,  to  which  I  shall  return.  Five  of  the  seven 
pictures,  as  you  see,  give  a  first  idea  of  Rubens  not  destitute  of 
interest.  Supposing  that  he  were  unknown,  or  known  only  by  the 
Medici  Gallery  at  the  Louvre,  —  and  that  is  an  ill-chosen  example, — 
one  would  begin  to  suspect  what  he  is  in  his  mind,  his  method,  his 
imperfections,  and  his  power.  From  this,  one  would  conclude  that 
he  must  never  be  compared  to  the  Italians,  under  penalty  of  mis- 
understanding, and  judging  him  falsely.  If  we  mean  by  style  the 
ideal  of  the  pure  and  beautiful  transcribed  in  formulas,  he  has  no 
style.  If  we  mean  by  grandeur  loftiness,  penetration,  the  medita- 
tive and  intuitive  force  of  a  great  thinker,  he  has  neither  grandeur 
nor  thought.  If  taste  be  requisite,  he  has  no  taste.  If  one  delights 
in  a  restrained,  concentrated,  condensed  art,  like  that  of  Leonardo 


38         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

da  Vinci  for  example,  this  can  only  irritate  and  displease  by  its 
habitual  exaggerations.  If  all  human  types  must  bear  some  relation 
to  those  of  the  Dresden  Madonna,  or  to  La  Joconde,  to  those  of 
Bellini,  Perugino,  and  Luini,  those  delicate  definers  of  grace  and 
beauty  in  woman,  no  indulgence  can  be  felt  for  the  abundant  beauty 
and  plump  charms  of  Helen  Fourment.  Finally,  if,  approaching 
more  and  more  to  the  sculptural  manner,  there  should  be  demanded 
from  the  works  of  Rubens  the  conciseness,  the  rigid  bearing,  the 
peaceable  gravity,  that  painting  wore  when  he  began,  very  little 
would  be  left  to  Rubens,  except  a  gesticulator,  a  man  full  of  force,  a 
sort  of  imposing  athlete,  with  little  cultivation,  —  in  short,  a  bad 
example.  In  this  case,  as  has  been  said,  "  We  salute  when  we  pass, 
but  do  not  look." 

It  is  necessary  then  to  find,  apart  from  all  comparison,  a  special 
position  for  this  glory  which  is  so  legitimate  a  glory.  It  must  be 
found  in  the  world  of  the  true  through  which  Rubens  travels  as  a 
master ;  and  also  in  the  world  of  the  ideal,  that  region  of  clear  ideas, 
of  sentiments,  and  emotions,  whither  his  heart  as  well  as  his  mind 
bear  him  incessantly.  Those  wing  strokes  by  which  he  there 
maintains  himself  must  be  understood.  It  must  be  comprehended 
that  his  element  is  light,  that  his  means  of  exaltation  is  his  palette, 
his  aim  the  clearness  and  evidence  of  objects.  The  works  of  Ru- 
bens cannot  only  be  viewed  in  an  amateur  fashion  as  shocking  the 
mind  and  charming  the  eye.  There  is  something  more  to  be  con- 
sidered and  to  say.  The  Brussels  Museum  is  the  beginning  of  the 
matter,  but  we  must  remember  that  Mechlin  and  Antwerp  remain. 


IV. 

RUBENS  AT  MECHLIN. 

MECHLIN  is  a  great  dreary  city,  empty,  dead,  and  buried  in  the 
shadow  of  its  basilicas  and  convents,  in  a  silence  from  which  noth- 
ing is  able  to  rouse  it,  neither  its  industries,  its  politics,  nor  the 
controversialists  who  sometimes  meet  there.  At  the  present  mo- 
ment they  are  having  processions  with  cavalcades,  congregations, 
and  banners,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Centennial  Jubilee.  All  this 
commotion  animates  it  for  a  day,  but  on  the  morrow  the  province 
goes  to  sleep  again.  There  is  very  little  movement  in  the  streets, 
a  great  desert  in  the  squares,  many  mausoleums  of  black  marble, 
and  statues  of  bishops  in  its  churches  ;  and  around  the  churches 
that  fine  short  grass  which  grows  in  solitude  among  the  pavements. 
In  short,  in  this  metropolitan,  or  rather  I  should  say  necropolitan 
city,  there  are  but  two  things  which  survive  its  past  splendor, — 
its  sanctuaries  of  exceeding  richness,  and  the  pictures  of  Rubens. 
These  pictures  are  the  celebrated  triptych  of  the  Magi  at  St.  John, 
and  the  not  less  celebrated  triptych  of  the  Miraculous  Draught  of 
Fishes,  which  belongs  to  the  church  of  Notre  Dame. 

The  Adoration  of  the  Magi  is,  as  I  have  previously  informed  you, 


40         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

a  third  version  of  the  Magi  of  the  Louvre  and  of  Brussels.  The 
elements  are  the  same,  the  principal  personages  textually  the  same, 
with  an  insignificant  change  of  age  in  the  heads,  and  some  trans- 
positions of  equally  little  importance.  Rubens  has  made  no  great 
effort  to  remodel  his  first  idea.  According  to  the  example  of  the 
greatest  masters,  he  had  the  good  sense  to  live  largely  upon  him- 
self, and  when  one  rendering  appeared  to  him  fertile  in  variations, 
he  simply  made  some  slight  alteration  in  the  repetitions.  This 
theme  of  the  Wise  Men  coming  from  the  four  corners  of  the  earth 
to  adore  a  homeless  infant,  born  one  winter  night  in  the  manger  of 
a  poor  and  hidden  stable,  was  one  of  those  which  pleased  Rubens 
by  its  pomp  and  its  contrasts.  It  is  interesting  to  follow  the 
development  of  the  first  idea,  as  he  essays  it,  enriches,  completes, 
and  finally  establishes  it.  After  the  picture  at  Brussels,  which  might 
have  satisfied  him,  he  was  able,  it  seems,  to  treat  the  subject  better 
still,  with  greater  richness,  more  freedom,  giving  to  it  that  flower 
of  certainty  and  perfection  which  belongs  only  to  works  absolutely 
mature.  This  he  has  done  at  Mechlin,  after  which  he  returned  to 
it,  abandoned  himself  more  entirely,  added  to  it  new  fancies,  aston- 
ished still  more  by  the  fertility  of  his  resources,  but  did  no  better. 
The  Magi  at  Mechlin  may  be  considered  as  the  final  expression 
of  the  subject,  and  as  one  of  the  finest  pictures  of  Rubens  in  this 
style  of  grand  spectacular  canvases. 

The  composition  of  the  central  group  is  reversed  from  right  to 
left, — with  the  exception  of  this  change,  it  can  be  almost  wholly 
recognized.  Here  are  the  three  Wise  Men,  —  the  European,  as  at 


RUBENS  AT  MECHLIN.  41 

Brussels,  with  his  white  hair  minus  the  baldness ;  the  Asiatic,  in  red  ; 
the  Ethiopian,  faithful  to  his  type,  here  smiles,  as  he  smiles  elsewhere, 
with  that  ingenuous  negro  laugh,  tender  and  wondering,  so  deli- 
cately observed  in  this  affectionate  race  ever  ready  to  show  its  teeth, 
only  he  has  changed  his  role  and  his  place.  He  has  been  relegated 
to  the  second  rank,  between  the  princes  of  the  earth  and  the  super- 
numeraries ;  the  white  turban  which  he  wore  at  Brussels  here  adorns 
a  fine  ruddy  head  of  Oriental  type,  whose  bust  is  clothed  in  green. 
Also  the  man  in  armor  is  here,  half-way  up  the  staircase,  bareheaded, 
rosy,  fair,  and  charming.  Instead  of  keeping  back  the  crowd  by 
facing  them,  he  makes  a  happy  counter-movement,  bends  to  admire 
the  child,  and  by  a  gesture  repels  the  eager  multitude  thronging  up 
the  steps.  Remove  this  elegant  knight  of  the  time  of  Louis  XIII., 
and  it  is  the  East.  How  could  Rubens  know  that  in  every  Mussul- 
man country  people  are  so  intrusive  that  they  crush  each  other  in 
order  to  see  better  ?  As  at  Brussels,  the  accessory  heads  are  the 
most  characteristic  and  the  finest 

The  arrangement  of  color  and  the  distribution  of  the  lights  is 
unchanged.  The  Virgin  is  pale,  the  infant  Christ  radiating  with 
whiteness  under  his  aureola.  Immediately  around  all  is  white,  —  the 
sage  with  his  ermine  collar  and  hoary  locks,  the  silver  head  of  the 
Asiatic,  finally  the  turban  of  the  Ethiopian,  —  a  circle  of  silver, 
shaded  with  rose  and  pale  gold.  All  the  rest  is  black,  tawny,  or 
cold.  The  heads,  ruddy  or  of  a  burning  brick-red,  contrast  with 
bluish  countenances  of  a  most  unexpected  coldness.  The  dark  roof 
melts  away  in  air.  A  figure  in  blood-red  in  the  half-tint  relieves, 


42         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

finishes,  and  sustains  the  whole  composition,  attaching  it  to  the  vault 
by  a  knot  of  color,  soft,  but  very  precise.  It  is  a  composition  that 
cannot  be  described,  for  it  expresses  nothing  formal,  nothing  pathetic 
or  moving,  especially  nothing  literary.  It  charms  the  mind  because 
it  enchants  the  eye  ;  to  a  painter,  the  painting  is  priceless.  To  the 
delicate  it  must  cause  great  joy,  and  it  must  confound  the  wise.  It 
is  wonderful  to  see  how  it  all  lives,  moves,  breathes,  looks,  acts,  is 
full  of  color  or  fades  away,  forms  a  part  of  the  frame  or  detaches  it- 
self from  it,  melts  into  it  by  its  lights,  reinstates  itself  and  maintains 
itself  there  by  its  force.  And  as  to  the  crossing  of  shades,  the  ex- 
treme richness  obtained  by  simple  means,  by  the  violence  of  certain 
tones,  the  softness  of  certain  others  ;  the  abundance  of  red,  and  yet 
the  coolness  of  the  whole  picture,  —  as  to  the  laws  which  preside 
over  such  effects,  they  are  things  absolutely  disconcerting. 

Analysis  reveals  only  a  few  very  simple  formulas,  two  or  three 
master  colors  whose  purpose  is  explained,  whose  action  is_  foreseen, 
and  whose  influence  every  man  who  knows  how  to  paint  to-day 
understands.  The  colors  are  always  the  same  in  the  works  of  Ru- 
bens ;  there  are  no  secrets,  to  speak  truly.  The  accessory  combi- 
nations can  be  noted,  his  method  can  be  expressed ;  it  is  so  con- 
stant, and  so  plain  in  its  application,  that  a  pupil,  it  would  seem, 
would  only  have  to  follow  it.  Never  was  handiwork  easier  to 
seize,  with  fewer  tricks  and  reticences,  because  there  never  was  a 
painter  so  little  mysterious,  either  when  thinking,  composing,  color- 
ing, or  executing.  The  sole  secret  which  belongs  to  him,  and 
which  he  never  yielded  even  to  the  most  intelligent  or  the  best 


RUBENS  AT  MECHLIN.  43 

informed,  —  even  to  Gaspard  de  Grayer,  even  to  Jordaens,  even  to 
Vandyck, — is  that  imponderable,  unseizable  point,  that  irreducible 
atom,  that  nothing,  which  in  all  the  things  of  this  world  is  called 
the  inspiration,  the  grace,  or  the  gift,  —  which  is  everything. 

This  is  what  must  be  understood  in  the  first  place  when  Ru- 
bens is  spoken  of.  Every  man  of  the  craft,  or  a  stranger  to  the  . 
craft,  who  does  not  understand  the  value  of  the  gift  in  a  work 
of  art,  in  all  its  degrees  of  illumination,  inspiration,  or  fancy,  is 
hardly  fit  to  taste  the  subtle  essence  of  things,  and  I  would  ad- 
vise him  never  to  touch  Rubens  nor  even  many  others. 

I  will  spare  you  the  doors  of  the  triptych,  which,  however,  are 
superb,  not  only  being  of  his  best  period,  but  in  his  best  manner, 
brown  and  silvery,  which  is  the  last  expression  of  his  richness. 
There  is  a  St.  John  there  of  a  very  rare  quality,  and  an  Herodias 
in  dark  gray  with  red  sleeves,  who  is  his  eternal  woman. 

The  Miraculous  Draught  is  also  a  fine  picture,  but  not  the 
finest,  as  they  say  at  Mechlin,  in  the  Notre  Dame  quarter.  The 
cure"  of  St.  Jean  would  share  my  opinion,  and  in  good  conscience 
he  would  be  right.  This  picture  has  just  been  restored,  and  at 
present  it  is  placed  upon  the  ground,  in  a  schoolroom,  leaning 
against  a  white  wall,  under  a  glass  roof  which  inundates  it  with 
light,  without  a  frame,  in  the  crudity,  in  the  violence,  in  the 
cleanliness  of  its  very  first  day.  Examined  by  itself,  with  the  eye 
close  to  it,  and  entirely  to  its  disadvantage,  it  is  a  picture  which 
I  will  not  call  gross,  because  the  handiwork  elevates  the  style  a 
little  ;  but  material,  if  the  word  expresses,  as  I  understand  it,  in 


44         THE  OLD.  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

genious    but    narrow   construction    of   a  vulgar   character.      It   is 
wanting  in   that   something,    I    know   not   what,  in  which    Rubens 
infallibly  succeeds  when  he  touches  the  common, — a  note,  a  grace, 
a  tenderness,  something  like  a  kind    smile  which   makes  an  excuse 
for  heavy  features.     Christ,  relegated  to  the  right,  in  the  wing,  as 
an   accessory  in  this    fishing  picture,  is    as  insignificant  in    gesture 
as  he  is  in  physiognomy ;  and  his  red  mantle,  which  is  not  a  fine 
red,  is  sharply  relieved  against  a  blue  sky,  which  I  suspect  is  very 
much   altered.      St.    Peter,    a   little   neglected,   but   of  a   fine   winy 
value,  would  be,  if  the  Gospel  were  thought  of  before  this  canvas 
painted   for   fishermen   and   entirely  executed   from   fishermen,    the 
sole  evangelical  person   in  the  scene.      At   least   he   says   exactly 
what  an  old  man  of  his  class  and  rusticity  would  say  to  Christ  in 
similarly  strange  circumstances.     He  holds  pressed  against  his  ruddy 
and  rugged  breast  his  sailor's  cap,  a  blue  cap,  and  it  is  not  Rubens 
who  would  be  deceived  in  the  truth  of  such  a  gesture.     As  to  the 
two  naked    figures,   one  bending    towards   the    spectator,  the   other 
turned    towards  the   background,  and   both  seen    by  the   shoulders, 
they  are  celebrated   among  the   best   academy  pieces   that    Rubens 
ever   painted,   from    the    free   and    sure    manner   with   which    the 
painter  has  brushed  them  in,  doubtless  in  a  few  hours,  at  the  first 
painting,  with   the  wet   paint   clear,  even   abundant,  not   too   fluid, 
not  thick,  neither  too  modelled  nor  too  rough.     It  is  Jordaens  with- 
out reproach,  without  excessive   redness,  without  glitter  ;    or  rather 
it   is,  in   its  way  of  seeing   the   flesh,  and  not  the   meat,  the  best 
lesson  that  his  great  friend  could  give  him.     The  fisherman  with  his 


RUBENS  AT  MECHLIN.  45 

Scandinavian  head,  his  flowing  beard,  his  golden  hair,  his  bright 
eyes  in  his  flushed  countenance,  his  great  sea-boots  and  red  gar- 
ment, is  overwhelming.  And,  as  usual  in  all  Rubens's  pictures 
where  excessive  red  is  employed  as  a  quietus,  it  is  this  flaming 
personage  who  tempers  the  rest,  acts  upon  the  retina,  and  dis- 
poses it  to  see  green  in  all  the  neighboring  colors.  Note  also 
among  the  accessory  figures  a  great  boy,  —  a  cabin  boy  standing  on 
the  second  boat,  leaning  on  an  oar,  dressed  no  matter  how,  with  gray 
trousers,  a  purplish  waistcoat,  too  short,  unbuttoned,  and  open  over 
his  naked  stomach. 

These  men  are  fat,  red,  sunburned,  tanned  and  swollen  by  the 
fierce  breezes,  from  their  finger  ends  to  their  shoulders,  from  the 
brow  to  the  nape  of  the  neck.  All  the  irritating  salts  of  the  sea 
have  exasperated  whatever  the  air  touches,  have  brightened  the  blood, 
flushed  the  skin,  swollen  the  veins,  roughened  the  white  flesh,  and 
in  a  word  stained  them  with  vermilion.  It  is  brutal,  exact,  taken 
on  the  spot :  all  has  been  witnessed  on  the  quays  of  the  Scheldt  by 
a  man  who  sees  largely,  sees  truly,  both  color  and  form  ;  who  respects 
the  truth  when  it  is  expressive,  nor  fears  to  express  crude  things 
crudely,  for  he  knows  his  trade  like  an  angel  and  fears  nothing. 

What  is  truly  extraordinary  in  this  picture,  thanks  to  the  cir- 
cumstances which  permit  me  to  see  it  so  near,  and  examine  the 
workmanship  as  closely  as  if  Rubens  executed  it  before  me,  is  that 
it  seems  to  reveal  all  his  secrets,  and  that  after  all  it  astonishes  just 
as  much  as  if  it  revealed  nothing.  I  had  already  said  this  of  Ru- 
bens, before  this  new  proof  of  it  was  given  me. 


46        THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

The  embarrassment  is  not  to  know  how  he  did  it,  but  how  he 
could  do  so  well  by  working  thus.  The  means  are  simple,  the 
method  elementary.  It  is  a  fine  panel,  smooth,  clean,  and  white, 
on  which  works  a  hand  magnificently  agile,  adroit,  sensitive,  and 
composed.  The  impetuosity  supposed  to  be  his  is  a  way  of  feel- 
ing, rather  than  a  disorderly  way  of  painting.  The  brush  is  as 
calm  as  the  soul  is  hot  and  ready  to  rush  forward.  In  such  an 
organization  there  is  such  an  exact  relation  and  such  a  rapid  con- 
nection between  the  vision,  the  sensitiveness,  and  the  hand,  such 
perfect  obedience  of  the  one  to  the  others,  that  the  habitual  ex- 
plosions of  the  brain  which  directs  make  one  believe  in  the  sum- 
mersaults of  the  instrument.  Nothing  is  more  deceptive  than  this 
apparent  fever,  restrained  by  profound  calculation,  and  served  by  a 
mechanism  practised  in  every  exercise.  It  is  the  same  with  the  sen- 
sations of  the  eye,  and  consequently  of  the  choice  he  makes  of  colors. 
His  colors  are  also  very  simple,  and  only  appear  so  complicated  on 
account  of  the  results  achieved  by  the  painter,  and  the  part  he 
makes  them  play.  Nothing  can  be  more  limited  than  the  number 
of  primary  tints,  nor  more  foreseen  than  the  manner  in  which  they 
are  opposed ;  nothing  also  is  more  simple  than  the  habit  by  virtue 
of  which  he  shades  them,  and  nothing  more  unexpected  than  the 
result  which  is  produced. 

Not  one  of  Rubens's  tones  is  very  rare  in  itself.  If  you  take  his 
red,  it  is  easy  to  dictate  the  formula  ;  it  is  vermilion  and  ochre 
very  little  broken,  in  its  state  of  first  mixture.  If  you  examine 
his  blacks,  they  are  taken  out  of  a  pot  of  ivory  black,  and  serve, 


RUBENS  AT  MECHLIN.  47 

with  white,  for  all  the  imaginable  combinations  of  his  dull  or  tender 
grays.  His  blues  are  accidents ;  his  yellows,  one  of  the  colors 
which  he  feels  and  manages  least  well  in  point  of  tint,  except  the 
golds,  which  he  excels  in  rendering  in  their  warm  deep  richness, 
have,  like  his  reds,  a  double  part  to  play, —  first,  to  make  the  light 
fall  somewhere  beside  upon  the  whites ;  secondly,  to  exercise  in 
the  neighborhood  the  indirect  action  of  a  color  which  changes  other 
colors,  —  for  instance,  to  turn  into  violet,  and  give  a  certain  bloom 
to  a  dull  and  very  insignificant  gray,  quite  neutral  when  viewed 
upon  the  palette.  All  this  one  may  say  is  not  very  extraordinary. 

Brown  undertones,  with  two  or  three  active  colors,  to  make  one 
believe  in  the  wealth  of  a  vast  canvas  ;  broken  grays  obtained  by  dull 
mixtures;  all  the  intermediary  grays  between  deep  black  and  pure 
white,  —  consequently  very  little  coloring  matter  and  the  greatest 
brilliancy  of  color,  great  luxury  obtained  with  small  expense,  light 
without  excessive  brightness,  an  extreme  sonorousness  from  a  small 
number  of  instruments,  a  key-board  in  which  nearly  three  fourths  of  the 
keys  are  neglected,  but  which  he  runs  over,  skipping  many  notes  and 
touching  it  when  necessary  at  the  two  ends  ;  —  such  is,  in  the  mixed 
language  of  music  and  painting,  the  habit  of  this  great  practitioner. 
He  who  sees  one  of  his  pictures  knows  them  all,  and  he  who  has 
seen  him  paint  one  day  has  seen  him  paint  at  almost  every  moment  of 
his  life.  There  is  ever  the  same  method,  the  same  coolness,  the  same 
calculation.  A  calm  and  intelligent  premeditation  presides  over  his 
always  sudden  effects.  Whence  comes  his  audacity,  at  what  moment 
he  is  carried  away  and  abandons  himself,  can  never  be  known.  Is 


48         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

it  when  he  executes  some  violent  work,  some  extravagant  gesture, 
a  moving  object,  an  eye  that  gleams,  a  mouth  that  shouts,  tangled 
hair,  a  bristling  beard,  a  hand  that  grasps,  foam  that  lashes  the 
beach,  disorder  in  array,  a  breeze  in  light  objects,  or  the  uncer- 
tainty of  muddy  water  dripping  through  the  meshes  of  a  net  ?  Is  it 
when  he  imbues  many  yards  of  canvas  with  a  glowing  tint,  when  he 
makes  his  red  ripple  in  waves,  so  that  everything  around  this  red 
is  spattered  with  its  reflections  ?  Is  it,  on  the  contrary,  when  he 
passes  from  one  strong  color  to  another,  circulating  through  neutral 
tones  as  if  this  rebellious  and  sticky  material  were  the  most  manage- 
able of  the  elements  ?  Is  it  when  he  gives  a  loud  cry,  or  when  he 
utters  a  sound  so  feeble  that  one  can  hardly  catch  it  ?  Did  this 
painting,  which  puts  the  beholder  into  a  fever,  burn  in  this  manner 
the  hands  whence  it  issued,  fluid,  easy,  natural,  healthy,  and  ever 
virgin,  no  matter  at  what  moment  you  surprise  it  ?  Where,  in  a 
word,  is  the  effort  in  this  art,  which  might  be  called  forced,  while  it 
is  the  intimate  expression  of  a  mind  which  never  was  forced  ? 

Did  you  ever  close  your  eyes  during  the  execution  of  a  brilliant 
piece  of  music  ?  The  sound  gushes  everywhere.  It  seems  to  leap 
from  one  instrument  to  the  other ;  and  as  it  is  very  tumultuous,  in 
spite  of  the  perfect  harmony  of  the  whole,  it  might  well  be  believed 
that  everything  was  agitated,  that  the  hands  trembled,  and  that  the 
same  musical  frenzy  had  seized  the  instruments  and  those  who  held 
them  ;  and  because  the  performers  move  the  audience  so  violently, 
it  seems  impossible  that  they  should  remain  calm  before  their  music 
rests  ;  so  that  one  is  quite  surprised  to  see  them  peaceable,  self- 


RUBENS  AT  MECHLIN.  49 

contained,  solely  attentive  to  watching  the  movement  of  the  ebony 
wand  which  leads  them,  sustains  them,  dictates  to  each  what  he 
should  do,  and  which  is  itself  only  the  agent  of  a  mind  fully  awake 
and  of  great  knowledge.  Thus  Rubens  wields,  during  the  execution 
of  his  works,  the  ebony  baton  which  commands,  conducts,  and  over- 
looks ;  his  is  the  imperturbable  will,  the  master  faculty,  which  also 
directs  very  attentive  instruments,  I  mean  the  auxiliary  faculties. 

Shall  we  return  for  a  moment  more  to  this  picture  ?  It  is  under 
my  hand,  it  is  an  occasion  not  often  to  be  had,  and  which  I  shall 
never  have  again.  I  will  seize  it. 

The  painting  is  done  at  once,  completely,  or  with  very  little  re- 
touching. This  can  be  seen  by  the  lightness  of  certain  lays  of  color, 
in  the  St.  Peter  in  particular,  in  the  transparency  of  the  great  flat 
and  sombre  tints,  such  as  the  boats,  the  sea,  and  all  that  participates 
in  the  same  brown,  bituminous,  or  greenish  element ;  it  is  equally 
seen  in  the  not  less  rapid,  though  heavier  execution  of  the  parts 
which  require  a  thick  paint  and  a  more  sustained  labor.  The  bril- 
liancy of  the  tone,  its  freshness  and  its  radiance,  are  due  to  this.  The 
white  ground  of  the  panel  and  its  smooth  surface  give  to  the  color, 
frankly  applied,  that  vibration  proper  to  all  tinting  laid  upon  a  clear, 
resisting,  and  polished  surface.  If  it  were  thicker,  the  material 
would  be  muddy  ;  if  it  were  more'  rugose,  it  would  absorb  as  many 
luminous  rays  as  it  would  reflect,  and  the  effort  would  have  to  be 
doubled  to  produce  the  same  result  of  light ;  were  it  thinner,  more 
timid,  or  less  generously  smooth  in  its  contours,  it  would  have  that 
enamelled  character,  which,  however  admirable  in  certain  cases,  would 

4 


50         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

suit  neither  the  style  of  Rubens,  nor  his  spirit,  nor  the  romantic 
purpose  of  his  fine  works.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  his  moderation  is 
perfect.  The  two  torsi,  finished  as  thoroughly  as  a  bit  of  nude  of 
this  extent  can  be  within  the  conditions  of  a  mural  picture,  have  not 
undergone  much  retouching  with  the  brush.  It  might  well  be  that 
in  his  days  so  regularly  divided  by  labor  and  repose,  that  each  figure 
was  the  result  of  an  afternoon  of  joyous  work,  after  which  the  painter, 
content  with  himself  with  good  reason,  laid  aside  his  palette,  had  his 
horse  saddled,  and  thought  no  more  about  it. 

With  still  better  reason,  in  all  the  secondary  and  supporting  parts, 
the  sacrificed  portions,  the  large  spaces  where  the  air  circulates,  the 
accessories,  boats,  waves,  nets,  and  fishes,  the  hand  runs  along  and 
does  not  emphasize.  A  vast  wash  of  the  same  brown,  which  is 
brownish  above  and  green  below,  grows  warm  when  there  is  a  reflec- 
tion, is  gilded  in  the  hollows  of  the  sea,  and  descends  from  the  edge  of 
the  vessels  to  the  frame.  Through  this  abundant  and  liquid  material 
the  painter  has  given  the  appropriate  life  to  each  object,  or,  accord- 
ing to  the  language  of  the  studio,  "  he  has  found  the  lifer  A  few 
gleams,  a  few  reflections  laid  on  with  a  fine  brush,  and  you  have  the 
sea.  It  is  the  same  with  the  nets  and  their  meshes,  their  planks 
and  corks ;  the  same  with  the  fish  struggling  in  the  muddy  water,  so 
wet  that  they  drip  with  the  very  colors  of  the  sea  ;  the  same  with  the 
feet  of  Christ  and  the  boots  of  the  glowing  sailor.  To  call  this  the 
last  word  of  the  art  of  painting,  when  it  is  severe,  or  when  it  seeks, 
with  the  grand  style  in  mind,  eye  and  hand  to  express  ideals  or 
epics ;  to  maintain  that  this  is  the  true  method  under  all  circum- 


KUBENS  AT  MECHLIN.  51 

stances,  —  would  be  like  applying  the  picturesque,  rapid  language,  full 
of  imagery,  of  our  modern  writers  to  the  ideas  of  Pascal.  In  any 
case  it  is  Rubens's  own  language,  his  style,  and  consequently  is  appro- 
priate to  his  own  ideas. 

The  real  astonishment,  when  one  thinks  about  it,  comes  from  the 
fact  that  the  painter  has  meditated  so  little ;  that,  having  thought  of 
any  subject,  no  matter  what,  he  is  not  turned  aside,  but  can  make  a 
picture  of  it ;  that  with  so  little  study  he  is  never  trivial,  and  that 
with  such  simple  means  he  can  produce  such  an  effect.  If  the  sci- 
ence of  his  palette  is  extraordinary,  the  sensitiveness  of  his  agents 
is  none  the  less  so ;  and  a  merit  of  which  one  would  hardly  suspect 
him  comes  to  the  aid  of  all  the  others, — moderation,  and  even  I  might 
say  sobriety,  in  the  purely  exterior  manner  of  handling  the  brush. 

There  are  many  things  that  people  forget  in  our  time,  that  they 
appear  to  misunderstand,  and  that  they  vainly  strive  to  abolish. 
I  cannot  tell  where  our  modern  school  found  its  taste  for  thickness 
of  material,  and  that  love  of  heavy  masses  of  paint,  which  constitutes 
in  the  eyes  of  some  people  the  principal  merit  of  certain  works.  I 
have  seen  no  authoritative  examples  for  it  anywhere,  except  in  the 
painters  of  the  visible  decadence  and  in  Rembrandt,  who  appar- 
ently could  not  always  do  without  it,  but  who  knew  how  to  do  with- 
out it  sometimes.  Fortunately  in  Flanders  it  is  an  unknown  method ; 
and  as  to  Rubens,  —  the  accredited  master  of  transport  and  fury,  — 
the  most  violent  of  his  pictures  are  often  the  least  loaded.  I  do  not 
say  that  he  systematically  thins  his  lights,  as  they  did  up  to  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  or  that,  on  the  other  hand,  he 


52         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

thickens  all  the  strong  tints.  This  method,  exquisite  in  its  first 
destination,  has  undergone  all  the  changes  since  introduced  by  the 
necessities  of  ideas,  and  the  more  multiplied  needs  of  modern  paint- 
ing. However,  if  he  is  far  from  the  purely  archaic  method,  he  is  still 
farther  from  the  practices  in  favor  since  GeYicault, —  to  take  a  recent 
example  from  the  illustrious  dead.  His  brush  glides  and  does  not 
plunge.  It  never  drags  after  it  that  sticky  mortar  that  accumulates 
on  the  salient  points  of  objects,  and  produces  the  effect  of  high  re- 
lief, because  the  canvas  itself  thus  becomes  more  salient.  He  does 
not  load,  he  paints  ;  he  does  not  build,  he  writes  ;  he  caresses,  lightly 
touches,  or  bears  heavily.  He  passes  from  an  immense  impasto  to  the 
most  delicate,  the  most  fluid  touch,  always  with  that  degree  of  con- 
sistency or  lightness,  that  breadth  or  that  minuteness,  which  suits  the 
subject  that  he  treats,  so  that  the  prodigality  or  the  economy  of  his 
paint  is  a  matter  of  local  suitability,  and  the  weight  or  the  marvel- 
lous lightness  of  his  brush  is  a  means  of  expressing  what  demands 
or  does  not  demand  emphasis. 

To-day,  when  divers  schools  divide  our  French  school,  and  to  tell 
the  truth,  we  have  only  certain  more  or  less  adventurous  talents 
without  fixed  doctrines,  the  value  of  a  picture  well  or  badly  exe- 
cuted is  of  very  little  consequence.  A  crowd  of  subtle  questions 
induce  forgetfulness  of  the  most  necessary  elements  of  expression. 
In  carefully  examining  certain  contemporary  pictures,  whose  merit, 
at  least  as  attempts,  is  often  more  real  than  is  believed,  we  find 
that  the  hand  is  no  longer  reckoned  among  the  agents  which  serve 
the  mind.  According  to  recent  methods,  to  execute  is  to  fill  a  form 


RUBENS  AT  MECHLIN.  53 

with  a  tone,  whatever  may  be  the  tool  that  performs  the  labor. 
The  mechanism  of  the  operation  seems  unimportant,  provided  the 
operation  succeeds  ;  and  it  is  wrongly  supposed  that  thought  can  be 
as  well  served  by  one  instrument  as  another.  It  is  precisely  the 
opposite  of  this  that  all  the  skilful  painters,  that  is  to  say,  the  sensi- 
tive ones,  of  these  countries  of  Flanders  and  Holland,  have  affirmed 
in  advance  by  their  method,  which  is  the  most  expressive  of  all.  And 
it  is  against  the  same  error  that  Rubens  protests,  with  an  authority 
which  will  perhaps  have  a  little  better  chance  of  being  heeded. 

Take  from  the  pictures  of  Rubens  —  from  this  one  which  I  am 
studying  —  the  spirit,  the  variety,  the  propriety  of  each  touch,  and 
you  take  from  it  a  word  which  tells,  a  necessary  accent,  a  trait 
of  physiognomy.  You  take  away  from  it  perhaps  the  sole  element 
which  spiritualizes  so  much  materiality,  and  transfigures  its  fre- 
quent hideousness,  because  you  suppress  all  sensitiveness ;  and, 
tracing  effects  to  their  primary  cause,  you  kill  the  life  and  make 
a  picture  without  a  soul.  I  might  almost  say  that  one  touch  the 
less  would  cause  the  disappearance  of  some  artistic  feature. 

The  rigor  of  this  principle  is  such,  that  in  a  certain  order  of  pro- 
ductions there  is  no  thoroughly  felt  work  which  is  not  naturally 
well  painted,  and  that  any  work  where  the  hand  shows  itself  with 
success  or  brilliancy  is  from  that  very  fact  a  work  which  comes 
from  the  brain  and  manifests  that  fact.  Rubens  had  on  this  sub- 
ject opinions  which  I  recommend  to  you,  if  you  should  ever  be 
tempted  to  scorn  a  brush  stroke  made  in  an  appropriate  manner. 

There  is  not  in  this  great  picture,  apparently  so  brutal  and  so  free 


54         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

in  handling,  a  single  detail,  small  or  great,  which  is  not  inspired  by 
sentiment,  and  instantaneously  rendered  by  a  happy  touch.  If  the 
hand  did  not  move  so  rapidly,  it  would  be  behind  the  thought ;  if 
the  improvisation  were  less  sudden,  the  life  communicated  would  be 
less  ;  if  the  work  were  more  hesitating  or  less  comprehensible,  the 
picture  would  become  impersonal  in  proportion  to  its  acquired  heavi- 
ness and  its  loss  of  spirit.  Consider,  moreover,  that  this  unequalled 
dexterity,  this  careless  skill  in  playing  with  ungrateful  materials 
and  rebellious  instruments,  this  noble  movement  of  a  well-handled 
tool,  this  elegant  fashion  of  moving  it  over  free  surfaces,  the  impulse 
which  escapes  from  it,  the  sparks  that  seem  to  fly  from  it,  —  all  this 
magic  of  the  great  performers,  which  in  others  becomes  mannerism, 
or  affectation,  or  purely  a  spirit  of  common  alloy,  —  in  him  (I  repeat 
it  to  satiety)  is  only  the  exquisite  sensibility  of  an  eye  admirably 
healthy,  a  hand  marvellously  submissive,  and  finally  and  especially,  of 
a  soul  truly  open  to  all  things,  happy,  confident,  and  great.  I  defy 
you  to  find  in  the  great  repertory  of  his  works  one  perfect  work  ; 
but  I  also  defy  you  not  to  feel  even  in  the  manias,  the  faults,  I  was 
going  to  say  the  trivialities,  of  this  noble  mind,  the  marks  of  incon- 
testable grandeur ;  and  this  exterior  mark,  the  last  seal  placed  upon 
his  thought,  is  the  imprint  of  the  hand  itself. 

What  I  say  to  you  in  many  phrases  far  too  long,  and  too  often  in 
the  special  jargon  which  it  is  hard  to  avoid,  would  doubtless  have 
found  a  more  suitable  place  elsewhere.  Do  not  imagine  that  the 
picture  I  dwell  upon  is  a  finished  specimen  of  the  finest  merits  of 
the  painter.  In  no  degree  is  it  that.  Rubens  has  frequently  con- 


RUBENS  AT  MECHLIN.  55 

ceived  better,  seen  better,  and  painted  far  better ;  but  the  execution 
of  Rubens,  so  unequal  in  results,  scarcely  varies  in  principle,  and  the 
observations  made  with  regard  to  a  picture  of  medium  merit,  are 
equally  applicable,  and  with  much  better  reason,  to  whatever  he  has 
produced  that  is  excellent 


V. 

THE  ELEVATION  OF  THE  CROSS  AND  THE  CRUCIFIXION. 

MANY  people  say  Antwerp,  but  many  too  say  the  Home  of  Ru- 
bens ;  and  this  way  of  speaking  expresses  still  more  exactly  all  the 
things  which  make  the  magic  of  the  place,  —  a  great  city,  a  great 
personal  destiny,  a  famous  school,  and  pictures  ultra-celebrated.  All 
this  is  imposing,  and  the  imagination  becomes  more  than  usually 
active,  when  in  the  midst  of  the  Place  Verte  is  seen  the  statue  of 
Rubens,  and  beyond,  the  old  Basilica,  where  are  preserved  the  trip- 
tychs  which,  humanly  speaking,  have  consecrated  it.  The  statue  is 
not  a  masterpiece,  but  it  is  he  in  his  own  home.  Under  the  figure 
of  a  man  who  was  merely  a  painter,  with  the  attributes  only  of  a 
painter,  in  very  truth  is  personified  the  sole  Flemish  royalty  which 
has  been  neither  contested  nor  menaced,  and  which  certainly  never 
will  be  so. 

At  the  end  of  the  square  Notre  Dame  is  seen,  in  profile,  drawn 
at  full  length  from  one  of  its  lateral  fronts,  —  the  darkest,  because 
it  is  the  weather  side.  Its  surrounding  of  light  low  houses  increases 
its  size  and  makes  it  darker.  With  its  wrought  architecture,  its 
rusty  color,  its  blue  and  shining  roof,  its  colossal  tower,  where  shines 


THE  ELEVATION  OF  THE  CROSS  AND  THE  CRUCIFIXION.     $7 

in  the  stone,  smoky  with  the  Scheldt  fogs  and  the  winters,  the  golden 
disk  and  golden  hands  of  the  clock,  it  gains  immeasurable  propor- 
tions. When,  as  to-day,  the  sky  is  lowering,  the  clouds  add  to  the 
grandeur  of  its  lines  all  the  freaks  of  their  caprice.  Imagine  then 
the  invention  of  a  Gothic  Piranesi,  exaggerated  by  the  fancy  of  the 
North,  wildly  lighted  by  a  stormy  day,  and  traced  in  irregular  spots 
upon  the  great  background  of  a  tempest-swept  sky,  all  black  or  all 
white.  No  preliminary  scenic  effect  could  be  combined  more  original 
and  striking. 

In  spite  of  coming  from  Mechlin  and  Brussels,  in  spite  of  having 
seen  the  Magi  and  the  Calvary,  and  of  having  formed  of  Rubens  an 
exact  and  measured  idea,  in  spite  of  having  familiarly  examined  him 
until  you  feel  quite  at  your  ease,  you  will  not  enter  Notre  Dame  as 
you  would  a  museum. 

It  is  the  hour  of  three,  —  the  clock  in  the  air  has  just  struck ; 
hardly  a  sacristan  makes  a  sound  in  the  quiet  naves,  clean  and  bright 
as  Peter  Neefs  has  reproduced  them,  with  an  inimitable  sentiment 
of  their  solitude  and  their  grandeur.  It  rains,  and  the  light  is 
changing ;  gleams  and  shadows  succeed  each  other  upon  the  two 
triptychs,  attached  unostentatiously,  in  their  narrow  frames  of 
brown  wood,  to  the  cold  smooth  walls  of  the  transepts  ;  yet  these 
superb  paintings  only  appear  more  distinct  amid  the  glaring  lights 
and  the  obscurities  which  struggle  with  them.  German  copyists 
have  established  their  easels  before  the  Descent  from  the  Cross,  but 
there  is  no  one  before  the  Elevation  of  the  Cross.  This  simple  fact 
expresses  sufficiently  the  world's  opinion  of  these  two  works. 


58         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

They  are  much  admired,  almost  without  reserve,  and  the  fact  is 
rare  for  Rubens  ;  but  admiration  is  divided.  Great  renown  has  pre- 
ferred the  Descent  from  the  Cross ;  the  Elevation  of  the  Cross  has 
the  gift  of  touching  more  deeply  the  passionate  or  more  thoroughly 
persuaded  friends  of  Rubens.  Nothing  indeed  can  be  more  unlike 
than  these  two  works,  conceived  at  an  interval  of  two  years,  inspired 
by  the  same  effort  of  mind,  and  which  yet  bear  so  clearly  the  marks 
of  his  two  tendencies.  The  Descent  from  the  Cross  is  of  1612,  the 
Elevation  of  the  Cross  of  1602.  I  insist  upon  the  dates,  for  they  are 
important.  Rubens  had  just  returned  to  Antwerp,  and  it  was,  so  to 
speak,  upon  landing  that  he  painted  them.  His  education  was  com- 
pleted. At  that  time  he  had  made  an  excessive  amount  of  studies, 
rather  too  oppressive  for  him,  of  which  he  meant  to  make  use  openly, 
once  for  all,  but  of  which  he  was  to  get  rid  almost  immediately.  Each 
one  of  the  Italian  masters  whom  he  had  consulted  of  course  advised 
him  differently.  The  violent  masters  advised  him  to  dare  great 
things.;  the  severe  masters  recommended  him  greatly  to  restrain  him- 
self. Nature,  temper,  native  faculties,  former  lessons,  recent  lessons, 
everything  was  prepared  to  divide  him  ;  the  task  itself  required  him 
to  separate  his  fine  gifts  into  two  parts.  He  felt  the  occasion,  seized 
it,  treated  each  subject  according  to  its  own  spirit,  and  gave  of  him- 
self two  contrary  and  yet  just  ideas, — one  the  most  magnificent 
example  of  his  wisdom,  the  other  the  most  astounding  revelation  ol 
his  dash  and  ardor.  Add  to  the  personal  inspiration  of  the  painter 
a  very  marked  Italian  influence,  and  you  will  still  better  understand 
the  extraordinary  value  that  posterity  attaches  to  these  pages,  which 


THE  ELEVATION  OF  THE  CROSS  AND  THE  CRUCIFIXION.     59 

may  be  considered  his  masterworks,  and  which  were  the  first  public 
act  of  his  life  as  the  head  of  a  school. 

I  will  tell  you  how  this  influence  is  manifested  and  by  what 
character  it  is  recognized.  It  is  enough  at  first  to  remark  that  it  ex- 
ists, that  the  physiognomy  of  Rubens's  talent  loses  none  of  its  features 
at  the  very  moment  that  we  are  examining  it.  It  is  not  that  he  is 
positively  restrained  by  the  canonical  formulas  in  which  others  would 
have  been  imprisoned.  Heaven  knows  with  what  ease  he  moves  in 
them,  with  what  liberty  he  uses  them,  with  what  tact  he  disguises 
or  avows  them,  according  as  it  pleases  him  to  permit  us  to  see  the 
learned  man  or  the  innovator.  However,  whatever  he  does,  we  feel 
the  Romanist  who  has  just  passed  years  on  classic  ground,  who 
comes  home  but  has  not  yet  changed  his  atmosphere. 

Something  remains,  which  recalls  his  journey  like  a  strange  odor 
in  his  garments.  Certainly  it  is  to  this  good  Italian  odor  that  the 
Descent  from  the  Cross  owes  the  exceeding  favor  it  enjoys.  Those, 
in  fact,  who  would  have  Rubens  a  little  as  he  is,  but  very  much 
also  as  they  dream  he  should  be,  find  here  a  youthful  seriousness, 
a  flower  of  pure  and  studious  maturity  which  soon  disappears  and 
is  unique. 

The  composition  does  not  need  describing.  Not  one  can  be  cited 
that  is  more  popular  as  a  work  of  art  and  as  a  page  of  religious 
character.  There  is  no  one  who  does  not  bear  in  mind  the  ar- 
rangement and  effect  of  the  picture,  its  great  central  light  against  a 
dark  background,  its  grand  masses  of  color,  its  distinct  and  massive 
divisions.  It  is  known  that  Rubens  got  the  first  idea  of  it  in  Italy, 


60         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

and  that  he  makes  no  effort  to  conceal  that  he  borrowed  it.  The 
scene  is  powerful  and  grave.  It  has  an  effect  from  a  distance,  is 
strongly  marked  upon  the  wall;  it  is  serious,  and  produces  serious- 
ness. When  the  murders  are  remembered  with  which  the  work  of 
Rubens  is  bloody,  the  massacres,  the  torturing  executioners,  using 
pincers  and  exciting  roars  of  anguish,  it  is  evident  that  this  is  a 
noble  suffering.  Everything  is  as  restrained,  concise,  and  laconic 
as  a  page  of  Scripture. 

Here  are  neither  gesticulations,  nor  cries,  nor  horrors,  nor  excessive 
tears  ;  scarcely  one  real  sob  bursts  from  the  Virgin  ;  and  thus  the 
intense  mournfulness  of  the  drama  is  expressed  by  a  gesture  of  the 
inconsolable  mother,  by  a  face  bathed  in  tears,  and  reddened  eyes. 
The  Christ  is  one  of  the  most  elegant  figures  that  Rubens  ever 
imagined  in  order  to  paint  a  God.  It  has  an  inexpressible  slender 
grace,  pliant  and  almost  meagre,  which  gives  it  all  the  delicacy  of 
nature,  and  all  the  distinction  of  a  fine  academic  study.  Its  mod- 
eration is  subtle,  its  taste  perfect,  the  drawing  very  nearly  equals 
the  sentiment.  • 

You  cannot  have  forgotten  the  effect  of  this  long  body,  slightly 
out  of  joint,  with  the  little  head,  so  thin  and  delicate,  fallen  on  one 
side,  so  livid  and  so  perfectly  limpid  in  its  pallor,  neither  contracted 
nor  distorted  ;  whence  all  pain  has  passed  away,  and  which  falls 
with  such  blessedness  for  a  moment  into  the  strange  beauty  of  the 
death  of  the  righteous.  Remember  how  heavy  and  how  precious 
it  is  to  bear,  in  what  an  exhausted  attitude  it  glides  along  the  wind- 
ing-sheet, with  what  affectionate  anguish  it  is  received  by  the  ex- 


THE  ELEVATION  OF  THE  CROSS  AND  THE  CRUCIFIXION.     6 1 

tended  arms  and  hands  of  women.  Can  anything  be  more  touching  ? 
One  of  its  feet,  livid  and  scarred  with  the  nails,  touches  at  the  foot 
of  the  cross  the  naked  shoulder  of  the  Magdalen.  It  does  not  bear 
upon,  it  lightly  brushes  it.  The  contact  cannot  be  perceived  ;  it  is 
divined  rather  than  seen.  It  would  have  been  profane  to  empha- 
size it ;  it  would  have  been  cruel  not  to  let  it  be  believed.  All  the 
furtive  sensibility  of  Rubens  is  in  this  imperceptible  contact,  which 
says  so  much  respecting  everything,  and  touches  all  with  ten- 
derness. 

The  Magdalen  is  admirable ;  it  is  incontestably  the  best  piece  of 
workmanship  in  the  picture,  the  most  delicate,  the  most  personal, 
one  of  the  best  also  that  Rubens  ever  executed  in  his  career  so 
fertile  in  the  invention  of  feminine  beauty.  This  delicious  figure 
has  its  legend ;  how  could  it  fail  to  have  one,  its  very  perfection  hav- 
ing become  legendary?  It  is  probable  that  this  fair  girl  with  the 
dark  eyes,  firm  look,  and  clean-cut  profile  is  a  portrait,  and  that  por- 
trait one  of  Isabel  Brandt,  whom  he  had  married  two  years  before, 
and  who  also  served  him,  perhaps  during  a  pregnancy,  as  a  model  for 
the  Virgin  of  the  Visitation  in  the  wing  of  the  triptych.  However, 
in  seeing  this  ampleness  of  person,  the  blond  hair,  and  rounded  pro- 
portions, one  thinks  of  what  will  be  one  day  the  splendid  and  indi- 
vidual charm  of  the  beautiful  Helen  Fourment  whom  he  married 
twenty  years  after.  From  the  first  to  the  last,  a  tenacious  type 
seemed  to  be  lodged  in  the  heart  of  Rubens,  a  fixed  ideal  haunted 
his  amorous  and  constant  imagination.  He  pleases  himself  with  it, 
completes  it,  finishes  it ;  he  pursues  it  after  a  fashion  in  his  two 


62         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

marriages,  as  he  does  not  cease  to  pursue  it  in  his  works.  There  is 
always  something  of  Isabel  and  Helen  in  the  women  that  Rubens 
painted  from  each  of  them.  In  the  first  he  seems  to  put  some  pre- 
conceived feature  of  the  second ;  in  the  second  he  introduces  a  sort 
of  ineffaceable  memory  of  the  first.  At  the  date  we  speak  of,  he 
possessed  one  and  was  inspired  by  her ;  the  other  is  not  yet  born,  and 
still  he  divines  her.  Already  the  future  mingles  with  the  present, 
the  real  with  the  ideal  divination ;  when  the  image  appears,  it  has  its 
double  form.  Not  only  is  it  exquisite,  but  not  a  feature  is  wanting 
to  it.  Does  it  not  seem  as  if,  in  perpetuating  it  thus  from  the  first 
day,  Rubens  meant  that  it  should  be  forgotten  neither  by  himself 
nor  by  any  one? 

Moreover,  it  is  the  sole  mundane  grace  with  which  he  has  em- 
bellished this  austere  picture,  slightly  monastic,  absolutely  evangelical, 
if  by  that  is  understood  gravity  of  sentiment  and  manner,  and  the 
rigor  be  considered  with  which  such  a  mind  must  have  restrained 
itself.  On  this  occasion,  as  you  will  guess,  a  large  part  of  his  reserve 
came  from  his  Italian  education,  as  well  as  the  respect  he  accorded 
to  his  subject. 

The  canvas  is  dark  in  spite  of  its  brilliancy  and  the  extraordinary 
whiteness  of  the  winding-sheet.  In  spite  of  its  relief,  the  painting  is 
fiat.  It  is  a  picture  with  blackish  undertones,  on  which  are  placed 
large  firm  lights,  destitute  of  shades.  The  coloring  is  not  very  rich ; 
it  is  full,  sustained,  calculated  with  precision  to  have  an  effect  from  a 
distance.  He  constructs  the  picture,  frames  it,  expresses  the  weak 
points  and  the  strong,  and  does  not  seek  to  embellish,  it  at  all.  It 


THE  ELEVATION  OF  THE  CROSS  AND  THE  CRUCIFIXION.     63 

is  composed  of  a  green  almost  black,  of  an  absolute  black,  of  a  rather 
dull  red,  and  a  white.  These  four  tones  are  set  side  by  side  as 
frankly  as  four  notes  of  such  violence  can  be.  The  contact  is  abrupt, 
but  they  do  not  suffer  from  it.  In  the  high  light  the  corpse  of  Christ 
is  drawn  with  a  delicate  and  supple  line,  and  modelled  by  its  own 
reliefs,  with  no  effort  in  the  shading,  thanks  to  imperceptible  grada- 
tions of  values.  There  is  nothing  shining,  not  a  single  division  in 
the  lights,  hardly  a  detail  in  the  dark  parts.  All  this  is  of  a  singular 
breadth  and  rigidity.  The  edges  are  narrow,  the  half-tints  simple, 
except  in  the  Christ,  where  the  undertints  of  ultramarine  have  ob- 
truded, and  now  make  some  useless  spots.  The  material  is  smooth, 
compact,  flowing  easily  and  prudently.  At  the  distance  from  which 
we  examine  it,  the  handiwork  disappears,  but  it  is  easy  to  divine 
that  it  is  excellent,  and  directed  with  perfect  security  by  a  mind 
inured  to  good  habits,  who  conforms  to  them,  applies  himself,  and 
is  determined  to  do  well.  Rubens  recollects  himself,  observes  him- 
self, restrains  himself,  and,  taking  possession  of  all  his  forces,  sub- 
ordinates them,  and  only  half  makes  use  of  them. 

In  spite  of  this  constraint,  it  is  a  work  singularly  original,  attrac- 
tive, and  powerful.  From  it  Vandyck  will  receive  his  best  religious 
inspiration.  Philippe  de  Champagne  will  imitate  it,  I  fear,  only  in 
its  weak  portions,  and  will  compose  from  it  his  French  style.  Vce- 
nius  must  certainly  have  applauded.  What  did  Van  Noort  think 
of  it?  As  to  Jordaens,  he  waited,  before  following  him  in  these 
new  ways,  for  his  old  companion  of  the  studio  to  become  more 
decidedly  Rubens. 


64         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

One  of  the  wings,  that  of  the  Visitation,  is  delightful  in  every  re- 
spect. Nothing  can  be  more  severe  and  charming,  richer  and  more 
sober,  more  picturesque  and  nobly  familiar.  Never  did  Flanders 
clothe  itself  in  the  Italian  style  with  so  much  good  feeling,  grace,  and 
naturalness.  Titian  furnished  the  gamut  and  partly  dictated  its 
tones,  colored  the  architecture  in  chestnut  brown,  advised  the  fine 
gray  cloud  which  gleams  above  the  cornices,  perhaps  also  the  green- 
ish azure  which  is  so  effective  between  the  columns  ;  but  it  was  Ru- 
bens who  discovered  the  pregnant  Virgin  with  her  curved  figure,  her 
costume  ingeniously  combined  of  red,  dark  blue,  and  fawn-color,  and 
her  great  Flemish  hat.  It  is  he  who  designed,  painted,  colored,  ca- 
ressed with  eye  and  brush  this  pretty  hand,  so  luminous  and  tender, 
which  rests  like  a  rosy  flower  upon  the  black  iron  balustrade  ;  just  as 
he  imagined  the  serving-woman,  and  intersected  her  with  the  frame, 
showing  of  this  blond  girl  with  blue  eyes  only  her  open  bodice, 
her  round  head  with  hair  turned  back,  and  her  lifted  arms  sus- 
taining a  basket  of  rushes.  In  short,  is  Rubens  already  himself? 
Yes.  Is  he  entirely  himself,  and  nothing  but  himself?  I  think 
not.  Has  he  ever  done  better  ?  Not  according  to  foreign  methods, 
but  he  certainly  has,  according  to  his  own. 

Between  the  central  panel  of  the  Descent  from  the  Cross  and  the 
Elevation  of  the  Cross,  which  decorates  the  northern  transept,  every- 
thing has  changed,  —  the  point  of  view,  tendency,  bearing,  even  a 
few  of  the  methods,  and  the  influences  which  the  two  works  feel  so 
differently.  A  glance  suffices  to  convince  you  of  this.  And  if  one 
considers  the  period  when  these  significant  pages  appeared,  it  can  be 


THE  ELEVATION  OF  THE  CROSS  AND  THE  CRUCIFIXION,     65 

understood  that  if  the  one  was  more  satisfying  and  more  convincing, 
the  other  must  have  been  more  astonishing,  and  consequently  have 
caused  the  perception  of  something  much  more  novel.  Less  perfect, 
because  it  is  more  stirring,  and  because  it  contains  no  figure  so  per- 
fectly lovely  to  see  as  the  Magdalen,  the  Elevation  of  the  Cross 
conveys  much  more  of  the  originality  of  Rubens,  more  of  his  im- 
petuosity, his  audacity,  his  happy  hits, —  in  a  word,  more  of  the 
fermentation  of  that  mind  full  of  fervor  for  novelties  and  projects. 
It  opens  a  wider  career.  It  is  possible  that  it  is  finished  in  a  less 
masterly  manner,  but  it  announces  a  master  of  a  very  different 
originality,  who  is  both  daring  and  powerful.  The  drawing  is  stiffer, 
less  delicate,  the  forms  more  violent,  the  modelling  less  simple  and 
rougher;  but  the  coloring  already  shows  profound  warmth,  and  that 
resonance  which  will  be  Rubens's  great  resource  when  he  neglects 
vivacity  of  tone  for  the  sake  of  radiance.  Imagine  the  color  more 
flaming,  the  outlines  less  hard,  the  setting  less  rough ;  remove  this 
grain  of  Italian  stiffness,  which  is  only  a  kind  of  knowledge  of  the 
world,  and  a  gravity  of  demeanor,  contracted  during  the  journey ; 
look  only  at  what  is  Rubens's  own,  —  the  youth,  the  fire,  the  already 
mature  convictions,  —  and  little  is  wanting  to  have  before  your  eyes 
Rubens  in  his  best  days ;  in  fine,  this  is  the  first  and  last  word  of 
his  fiery  and  rapid  manner.  The  slightest  latitude  would  make  of 
this  picture,  relatively  severe,  one  of  the  most  turbulent  that  he  ever 
painted.  Such  as  it  is,  with  its  sombre  amber  tints,  its  strong 
shadows,  the  low  muttering  of  its  stormy  harmonies,  it  is  still  one 
of  those  in  which  his  ardor  bursts  forth  even  more  evidently  because 

5 


66         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND.. 

it  is  sustained  by  the  most   manly   effort   maintained   to   the  very 
end  by  the  determination  not  to  fail. 

It  is  a  picture  of  impulse,  conceived  around  a  very  audacious 
arabesque,  which,  in  its  complication  of  forms  displayed  and  con- 
cealed, of  bent  bodies,  of  extended  arms,  of  repeated  curves,  of  rigid 
lines,  preserves  throughout  the  work  the  instantaneous  character 
of  a  sketch  struck  off  with  sentiment  in  a  few  seconds.  The  first 
conception,  the  arrangement,  effect,  gestures,  faces,  the  caprice  of 
color,  the  handiwork,  —  all  seem  to  be  the  sudden  result  of  an  irre- 
sistible, lucid,  and  prompt  inspiration.  Nrver  will  Rubens  use 
greater  emphasis  to  express  a  page  apparently  so  sudden. 

To-day,  as  in  1610,  there  may  be  a  difference  of  opinion  about 
this  work,  which  is  absolutely  personal  in  spirit,  if  not  in  manner. 
The  question  which  must  have  been  agitated  during  the  life  of  the 
painter  is  still  pending ;  it  consists  in  deciding  which  would  have 
been  best  represented  in  his  country  and  in  history,  —  Rubens  be- 
fore he  was  himself,  or  Rubens  as  he  always  was. 

The  Elevation  of  the  Cross  and  the  Descent  from  the  Cross 
are  the  two  moments  of  that  drama  of  Calvary  whose  prologue 
we  have  seen  in  the  triumphal  picture  at  Brussels.  At  the  dis- 
tance apart  that  the  two  pictures  are  placed,  the  principal  spots 
of  color  can  be  perceived,  their  dominant  tone  seized,  I  might  say 
that  their  sound  might  be  heard.  This  is  sufficient  for  briefly 
understanding  their  picturesque  expression  and  divining  their 
meaning. 

In  the  other  we  were  present  at   the  ending,  and  I  have   told 


THE  ELEVATION  OF  THE  CROSS  AND  THE  CRUCIFIXION.     67 

you  with  what  solemn  sobriety  it  is  exhibited.  All  is  over.  It 
is  night,  or  at  least  the  horizon  is  of  leaden  black.  All  are  silent, 
in  tears  ;  receiving  the  august  remains,  they  display  most  tender 
care.  Hardly  are  interchanged  those  words  which  the  lips  speak 
after  the  death  of  those  who  were  dear.  The  mother  and  the 
friends  are  there,  and  above  all,  the  most  loving  and  the  weakest 
of  women,  she  in  whose  fragility  and  grace  and  repentance  are  in- 
carnated all  the  sins  of  the  earth,  pardoned,  expiated,  and  now 
atoned  for.  Living  flesh  is  opposed  to  funereal  pallor.  There  is 
a  charm  even  in  the  dead  body.  The  Christ  seems  like  a  fair 
flower  cut  down.  He  hears  no  longer  those  who  blasphemed  him. 
He  has  ceased  to  hear  those  who  weep  for  him.  He  belongs  no 
longer  to  man,  nor  to  time,  nor  to  anger,  nor  pity.  He  is  beyond 
all,  even  death. 

Here  there  is  nothing  of  that  kind.  Compassion,  tenderness, 
mother  and  friends,  are  far  off.  In  the  left  wing  the  painter  has 
assembled  all  the  friendliness  of  grief  in  a  violent  group,  in  lament- 
ing or  despairing  attitudes.  In  the  right  wing  there  are  only  two 
mounted  guards,  and  on  that  side  there  is  no  mercy.  In  the 
centre  there  are  cries,  blasphemies,  insults,  and  the  trampling  of 
feet.  With  brute  efforts,  butcher  like  executioners  plant  the  cross, 
and  labor  to  raise  it  erect  in  the  canvas.  Arms  clench,  ropes 
stretch,  the  cross  wavers,  and  is  only  half-way  up.  Death  is  cer- 
tain. A  Man,  nailed  by  his  four  members,  suffers,  agonizes,  and 
forgives  with  his  whole  being.  Nothing  that  belongs  to  him  is 
free,  a  pitiless  fatality  has  seized  his  body,  the  soul  alone  escapes 


68         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND, 

from  it.  This  is  thoroughly  felt  in  this  upward  glance  which  turns 
from  earth,  and,  seeking  its  certainty  elsewhere,  goes  straight  to 
heaven.  All  that  human  ferocity  can  express  of  its  thirst  for 
slaughter,  and  its  promptness  in  doing  its  work,  the  painter  ex- 
presses like  a  man  who  understands  the  effect  of  anger,  and  knows 
the  workings  of  savage  passions.  And  all  the  gentleness  of  human 
nature,  the  bliss  in  dying  of  a  martyr  who  gives  himself  to  the 
sacrifice,  —  look  attentively  and  see  how  he  translates  it ! 

The  Christ  is  in  light ;  he  gathers  into  a  narrow  sheaf  almost 
all  the  lights  disseminated  in  the  picture.  Plastically  he  is  less 
excellent  than  the  one  in  the  Descent  from  the  Cross.  A  Roman 
painter  would  certainly  have  corrected  the  style  of  the  figure.  A 
Gothic  artist  would  have  desired  more  salient  bones,  fibres  more 
strained,  ligaments  more  precise,  the  whole  structure  more  meagre, 
or  perhaps  only  more  delicate.  Rubens  had,  you  know,  a  prefer- 
ence for  the  full  health  of  form,  which  belonged  to  his  manner 
of  feeling,  and  still  more  to  his  manner  of  painting,  and  without 
which  it  would  have  been  necessary  for  him  to  change  the  greater 
part  of  his  formulas.  With  that  exception  the  picture  is  beyond 
price.  No  man  but  Rubens  could  have  imagined  it  as  it  is,  in 
the  place  it  occupies,  in  the  highly  picturesque  acceptation  he  has 
given  it.  And  as  to  that  fine  head,  inspired  and  suffering,  manly 
and  tender,  with  the  hair  clinging  to  the  temples,  its  sweat,  its  glow, 
its  agony,  its  eyes  reflecting  celestial  beams,  and  its  ecstasy,  — 
who  is  the  sincere  master,  even  in  the  palmy  days  of  Italy,  who 
would  not  have  been  struck  by  what  force  of  expression  can  do 


THE  ELEVATION  OF  THE  CROSS  AND  THE  CRUCIFIXION.     69 

when  it  reaches  this  degree,  and  who  would  not  in  it  have  recog- 
nized a  dramatic  ideal  of  art  absolutely  novel  ? 

Pure  sentiment  came,  on    one  day  of  fever  and  clear  insight,  to 
lead  Rubens  as  far  as  he  could  go.      Afterwards  he  will  become 
more  free,  he  will  develop  still  more.     There  will  be,  thanks  to  his 
flowing  and  absolutely  unfettered  manner,  more  consecutiveness  and 
notably  more  method  in  all  parts  of  his  work,  in  the  exterior  and 
interior  drawing,  the    color,  and    the  workmanship.      He  will  mark 
less  imperiously  the  outlines  which  should  disappear ;  he  will  arrest 
less  suddenly  the  shadows  which  ought  to  melt  away ;  he  will  ac- 
quire a  suppleness  which  does  not   exist  here ;   he  will  gain  more 
agile  modes  of  speech,  a  language  of  a  more  pathetic  and  personal 
turn.      But  will  he  find  anything    clearer  and  more  energetic  than 
the   inspired   diagonal   which   cuts   this   composition    in   two ;    first 
makes  it  hesitate  in  its  perpendicular,  then  straightens  it,  and  di- 
rects it  to  the  top,  with   the   active   and   resolute  flight  of  a  lofty 
idea  ?     Will  he  find  anything  better  than  these  sombre  rocks,  this 
faded   sky,    this   great   white   figure   in    full    brilliancy   against   the 
shadows,   motionless   and    yet   moving,   that   a   mechanical   impulse 
pushes    diagonally   across    the    canvas,  with  its   pierced   hands,  its 
oblique  arms,  and  that  grand  gesture  of  clemency  which  makes  them 
balance  widely  opened  over  the  blind,  and  black,  and  wicked  world  ? 

If  one  could  doubt  the  power  of  a  successful  line,  of  the  dra- 
matic value  of  an  arabesque,  and  an  effect,  —  finally,  if  examples 
were  wanting  to  prove  the  moral  beauty  of  a  picturesque  concep- 
tion, —  one  would  be  convinced  of  it  after  this. 


70        THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

It  was  by  this  original  and  masculine  picture,  that  this  young 
man,  having  been  absent  ever  since  the  first  year  of  the  century, 
signalized  his  return  from  Italy.  What  he  had  acquired  in  his 
journeys,  the  nature  and  the  choice  of  his  studies,  above  all,  the 
human  fashion  which  he  intended  to  use,  were  known  ;  and  no  one 
doubted  his  destiny,  —  neither  those  whom  this  picture  astonished 
like  a  revelation,  nor  those  whom  it  shocked  like  a  scandal ;  those 
whose  doctrines  it  overturned  and  who  attacked  it,  nor  those 
whom  it  converted  and  carried  away.  The  name  of  Rubens  was 
sacred  at  that  day.  Even  to-day  very  little  is  wanting  for  that  first 
work  to  appear  as  accomplished  as  it  seemed,  and  was,  decisive. 
There  is  here,  too,  an  inexpressible  individuality,  like  a  great  breath, 
that  is  rarely  found  elsewhere  in  Rubens.  An  enthusiast  would 
write  sublime,  and  he  would  not  be  wrong  if  he  could  determine 
precisely  the  signification  proper  to  attach  to  that  term.  At  Brus- 
sels and  Mechlin  have  I  not  said  everything  concerning  the  so 
diverse  gifts  of  this  composer  of  vast  compass,  whose  fire  is  a  sort 
of  exalted  good  sense?  I  have  spoken  of  his  ideal,  so  different 
from  that  of  others,  of  the  dazzling  nature  of  his  palette,  of  the 
radiance  of  his  ideas  full  of  illumination,  of  his  persuasive  force, 
of  his  oratorical  clearness,  of  his  leaning  towards  apotheoses  which 
elevate  him,  of  that  heated  brain  which  expands  at  the  risk  of  in- 
flating him.  All  this  leads  us  to  a  still  more  complete  definition, 
to  a  word  that  I  am  going  to  say,  which  says  everything,  —  Rubens 
is  a*  lyric,  and  the  most  lyrical  of  all  painters.  His  imaginative 
promptness,  the  intensity  of  his  style,  his  sonorous  and  progressive 


THE  ELEVATION  OF  THE  CROSS  AND  THE  CRUCIFIXION.     71 

rhythm,  the  range  of  this  rhythm,  its  passage,  which  might  be  called 
vertical, — call  all  this  lyric  art,  and  you  will  not  be  far  from  the 
truth. 

There  is  in  literature  a  form,  the  most  heroic  of  all,  that  it  has 
been  agreed  to  call  the  ode.  It  is,  as  you  know,  the  most  agile  and 
the  most  sparkling  of  the  varied  forms  of  metrical  language.  There 
never  can  be  too  great  breadth,  nor  too  much  enthusiasm  in  the 
ascending  movement  of  the  strophes,  nor  too  great  light  at  their 
summit.  Now  I  might  cite  for  you  a  picture  by  Rubens,  conceived, 
conducted,  scanned,  illuminated  like  the  proudest  verses  written  in 
Pindaric  form.  The  Elevation  of  the  Cross  would  furnish  me  the 
best  example,  an  example  so  much  the  more  striking  in  that  every- 
thing here  is  in  harmony,  and  the  subject  was  worthy  of  being  thus 
expressed.  And  I  shall  not  merit  the  reproach  of  subtlety  if  I  tell 
you  that  this  page  of  pure  expansion  is  written  from  one  end  to 
the  other  in  the  form  rhetorically  called  sublime,  —  from  the  leap- 
ing lines  that  cross  it,  the  idea  which  becomes  more  luminous  as 
it  reaches  its  culmination,  to  the  inimitable  head  of  Christ  which 
is  the  dominant  and  expressive  note  of  the  poem,  the  sparkling 
note,  in  the  idea  it  contains,  that  is,  the  final  strophe. 


VI. 

RUBENS  AT  THE  ANTWERP  MUSEUM. 

HARDLY  does  one  set  foot  in  the  first  hall  of  the  Antwerp  Mu- 
seum before  Rubens  is  encountered.  On  the  right  is  an  Adora- 
tion of  the  Magi,  a  vast  canvas  in  his  rapid  and  learned  manner, 
painted  in  thirteen  days  it  is  said,  about  1624,  —  that  is,  in  his 
palmiest  years  of  middle  life ;  on  the  left  is  an  enormous  picture, 
also  celebrated,  a  Passion,  called  the  Lance  Thrust. 

Casting  a  glance  along  the  opposite  gallery  to  the  right  and  left, 
is  seen  from  far  this  unique  touch,  powerful  and  suave,  unctuous 
and  warm,  —  Rubens  —  and  Rubens  again.  We  begin,  catalogue  in 
hand.  Do  we  always  admire  ?  Not  always.  Do  we  remain  cold  ? 
Almost  never. 

I  copy  my  notes :  "  The  Magi,  fourth  version  since  the  one  at 
Paris,  this  time  with  notable  changes.  The  picture  is  less  scrupu- 
lously studied  than  that  of  Brussels,  less  finished  than  that  at  Mech- 
lin, but  of  a  greater  boldness,  of  a  breadth,  a  fulness,  a  certainty, 
and  a  self-poise  that  the  painter  has  rarely  exceeded  in  his  calm 
works.  It  is  truly  a  tour  de  force,  especially  if  the  rapidity  of  this 
improvised  work  be  considered  Not  one  gap,  nor  one  violence ; 


RUBENS  AT  THE  ANTWERP  MUSEUM.  73 

a  vast  luminous  half-tint  with  lights  not  too  brilliant  envelops  all 
the  figures,  which  lean  upon  each  other,  all  in  visible  colors,  and 
multiply  values  of  the  rarest,  the  subtlest,  the  least  studied,  and  at 
the  same  time  the  most  distinct  character. 

"Beside  very  ugly  types  cluster  finished  types.  The  African  king, 
with  his  square  face,  his  thick  lips,  his  reddish  skin,  his  great  eyes 
strangely  illumined,  and  his  huge  body  wrapped  in  a  pelisse  with 
sleeves  of  peacock  blue,  is  a  figure  entirely  unprecedented,  before 
which  certainly  Tintoretto,  Titian,  and  Veronese  would  have  clapped 
their  hands  in  applause.  On  the  left  two  colossal  cavaliers  pose  with 
solemnity,  in  a  very  strange  Anglo-Flemish  style,  —  the  rarest  bit 
of  color  in  the  picture  with  its  dull  harmony  of  black,  greenish 
blue,  brown,  and  white.  Add  to  these  the  profile  of  the  Nubian 
camel-drivers,  the  troops,  the  men  in  helmets,  the  negroes  ;  all  in 
the  largest,  the  most  transparent,  the  most  natural  reflected  lights. 
Spiders'  webs  float  among  the  beams,  and  at  the  very  bottom,  the 
ox's  head  —  rubbed  on  with  a  few  strokes  of  the  brush  in  bitumen 
—  has  no  more  importance,  and  is  executed  no  otherwise  than  would 
be  a  hasty  signature.  The  child  is  delicious,  and  can  be  instanced 
as  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  the  purely  picturesque  compositions 
of  Rubens,  the  highest  expression  of  his  knowledge  of  color  and  of 
his  dexterity  of  handling,  when  his  vision  was  clear  and  instanta- 
neous, his  hand  rapid  and  careful,  and  he  was  in  no  difficult  humor  ; 
it  is  the  triumph  of  spirit  and  knowledge,  and,  in  a  word,  of  self- 
confidence." 

The   Lance  Thrust   is   a  disconnected  picture  with  great  blank 


74        THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

spaces,  sharpnesses,  vast  and  rather  arbitrary  masses  of  color,  fine 
in  themselves,  but  of  doubtful  relation.  Two  great  reds,  too  un- 
broken and  badly  supported,  are  astonishing  in  it  because  they  are 
out  of  tone.  The  Virgin  is  very  beautiful,  although  her  gesture  is 
conventional ;  the  Christ  is  insignificant ;  the  St.  John  very  ugly,  or 
very  much  altered,  or  else  repainted.  As  often  happens  in  Rubens, 
and  other  painters  of  the  picturesque  and  ardent,  the  best  parts  are 
those  where  the  imagination  of  the  artist  has  been  accidentally  im- 
pressed, such  as  the  expressive  head  of  the  Virgin,  the  two  thieves 
writhing  upon  their  crosses,  and  perhaps  particularly  the  helmeted 
soldier  in  black  armor,  who  is  descending  the  ladder  which  leans 
against  the  gibbet  of  the  impenitent  thief,  and  turns  around,  raising 
his  head. 

The  harmony  of  the  bay  and  gray  horses  relieved  against  the  sky 
is  magnificent.  As  a  whole,  although  there  are  parts  of  high  merit, 
characteristic  of  the  first  order,  and  at  each  instant  the  mark  of  a 
master,  the  Lance  Thrust  seems  to  me  to  be  an  incoherent  work, 
conceived  in  fragments,  as  it  were,  of  which  portions  taken  sepa- 
rately would  give  an  idea  of  the  painter's  most  beautiful  pages. 

The  Trinity,  with  its  famous  foreshortened  Christ,  is  a  picture  of 
Rubens's  early  youth,  anterior  to  his  Italian  journey.  It  is  a  fair 
beginning,  cold,  thin,  smooth,  and  colorless,  which  already  contains 
the  germ  of  his  style  as  to  the  human  figure,  its  type  as  to  coun- 
tenances, and  his  suppleness  of  hand.  All  the  other  merits  are  to 
come,  so  that,  though  the  engraved  picture  already  greatly  resembles 
Rubens,  the  painting  gives  no  idea  of  what  Rubens  will  be  ten 
years  later. 


RUBENS  AT  THE  ANTWERP  MUSEUM.  75 

His  Christ  in  the  Manger  —  very  celebrated,  too  celebrated  —  is 
not  much  stronger  nor  richer,  and  does  not  appear  perceptibly  more 
mature,  although  it  belongs  to  much  later  years.  It  is  equally 
smooth,  cold,  and  thin.  The  abuse  of  his  facility  is  here  felt, — the 
use  of  a  cursive  method  not  at  all  rare,  of  which  the  formula  might 
be  thus  dictated  :  a  vast  grayish  undertone,  flesh  tones  clear  and 
lustrous,  much  ultramarine  in  the  half-tint,  an  excess  of  vermilion 
in  the  reflections,  a  painting  lightly  made  at  once  upon  a  drawing 
of  slight  consistency.  The  whole  is  liquid,  flowing,  slippery,  and 
careless.  When  in  this  cursive  style  Rubens  is  not  very  fine,  he 
is  no  longer  fine  at  all. 

As  to  the  Incredulity  of  St.  Thomas  (No.  307),  I  find  in  my  notes 
this  short  and  disrespectful  observation,  "  This  a  Rubens  ?  What 
a  mistake ! " 

The  Education  of  the  Virgin  is  the  most  charming  decorative 
fancy  ever  seen ;  it  is  a  little  panel  for  an  oratory  or  a  room,  painted 
for  the  eyes  more  than  the  mind,  but  in  its  sweetness,  of  an  incom- 
parable grace,  tenderness,  and  richness.  A  fine  red,  a  fine  black, 
and  on  an  azure  field,  shaded  with  changing  tones  of  mother-of-pearl 
and  silver,  like  two  flowers,  are  two  rosy  angels.  Take  away  the 
figure  of  St.  Anne  and  that  of  St.  Joachim,  preserve  only  the  Virgin 
with  the  two  winged  figures,  which  might  as  well  be  descending 
from  Olympus  as  Paradise,  and  you  have  one  of  the  most  delicious 
portraits  of  a  woman  that  Rubens  ever  conceived  and  recorded  in 
an  allegorical  portrait  to  make  an  altarpiece. 

The   Virgin   of  the   Parrot   savors  of  Italy   and   recalls  Venice, 


76        THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

both  by  the  scale,  the  power,  the  choice,  and  the  intrinsic  nature 
of  its  colors.  The  quality  of  the  background,  the  very  arabesque 
of  the  picture,  the  form  of  the  canvas,  the  square  shape,  reminds 
us  of  a  Palma  lacking  somewhat  in  severity.  It  is  a  fine,  almost 
impersonal  picture.  I  do  not  know  why  I  think  that  Vandyck 
must  have  been  tempted  to  draw  inspiration  from  it. 

I  pass  by  the  St.  Catherine,  and  a  great  Christ  on  the  Cross,  a 
repetition  in  little  of  the  Descent  from  the  Cross,  at  Notre  Dame. 
I  will  neglect  even  better  things  than  these,  to  reach,  with  an 
emotion  that  I  will  not  conceal,  a  picture  which  has,  I  believe,  only 
a  semi-celebrity,  but  is  none  the  less  a  marvellous  masterpiece,  and 
possibly  the  one  of  all  the  works  of  Rubens  which  does  most  honor 
to  his  genius.  I  speak  of  the  Communion  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi. 

The  scene  represents  a  dying  man,  a  priest  offering  him  the  Host, 
and  monks  who  surround  him,  aiding,  sustaining,  and  mourning  over 
him.  The  saint  is  naked,  the  priest  in  a  golden  chasuble,  faintly 
tinted  with  carmine,  the  two  acolytes  of  the  priest  in  white  stoles, 
the  monks  in  robes  of  cloth,  dark  brown  or  gray.  Surrounding 
them  is  a  strait  and  sombre  architecture,  a  reddish  dais,  a  bit  of 
blue  sky  ;  and  in  that  azure  gap,  just  above  the  saint,  three  rosy 
angels,  flying  like  heavenly  birds,  form  a  soft  and  radiant  crown. 
The  aspect  is  composed  of  the  most  simple  elements,  the  gravest 
colors,  a  most  severe  harmony.  To  sum  up  the  picture  in  a  rapid 
glance,  you  perceive  but  a  vast  bituminous  canvas  of  austere  style, 
where  everything  is  in  low  tone,  and  where  three  accidents  alone  are 
perfectly  evident  from  afar :  the  saint  in  his  livid  meagreness  ;  the  Host 


RUBENS  AT  THE  ANTWERP  MUSEUM.  77 

towards  which  he  leans ;  and  above,  at  the  summit  of  that  triangle  so 
tenderly  expressive,  a  vista  of  rose  and  silver  into  a  happy  eternity,  — 
a  smile  of  the  half-opened  heaven  of  which  we  assuredly  have  need. 

Here  is  no  pomp,  no  ornament,  no  turbulence,  nor  violent  ges- 
tures, nor  grace,  nor  fine  clothing,  not  one  lovely  or  useless  incident, 
nothing  which  does  not  appertain  to  a  cloistral  life  at  its  most 
solemn  moment.  A  dying  man,  worn  with  age  and  a  life  of  sanc- 
tity, has  left  his  bed  of  ashes  to  be  borne  to  the  altar  ;  he  longs  to 
die  there  while  he  receives  the  sacred  elements,  but  fears  to  fail 
before  the  Host  has  touched  his  lips.  He  makes  an  effort  to  kneel, 
but  cannot.  All  his  movements  are  over,  the  chill  of  the  last  mo- 
ments has  seized  his  limbs,  his  arms  make  that  inward  gesture  which 
is  the  certain  sign  of  approaching  death  ;  he  is  distorted,  out  of  his 
axis,  and  would  break  at  all  his  joints  were  he  not  supported  by 
the  armpits.  The  only  thing  living  about  him  •  is  his  small  and 
humid  eye,  clear,  blue,  fevered,  glassy,  with  red  lids,  dilated  by  the 
ecstasy  of  the  last  vision,  and  upon  his  lips,  livid  with  his  agony, 
the  wonderful  smile  of  the  dying,  and  the  yet  more  wonderful  smile 
of  the  righteous  believer,  who,  filled  with  hope,  awaits  his  end, 
hastens  to  meet  his  salvation,  and  looks  upon  the  Host  as  upon 
his  present  Lord. 

Around  the  dying  man  there  is  weeping,  and  those  who  weep 
are  grave  men,  robust,  tried,  and  resigned.  Never  was  grief  more 
sincere  or  more  sympathetic  than  this  virile  tenderness  of  men  of 
warm  blood  and  great  faith.  Some  restrain  themselves,  others  give 
way  to  grief.  Some  are  young,  stout,  ruddy,  and  healthy,  who  strike 


78          THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND 

their  breasts  with  their  clenched  fists,  and  whose  grief  would  be 
noisy  if  it  could  be  heard.  There  is  one  grizzled  and  bald  monk, 
with  a  Spanish  head,  hollow  cheeks,  thin  beard,  and  pointed  mus- 
tache, who  is  sobbing  gently  within  himself,  with  that  tension  of 
feature  of  a  man  who  restrains  himself  until  his  teeth  chatter.  All 
these  magnificent  heads  are  portraits.  The  type  is  admirable  in 
its  truthfulness ;  the  design  simple,  learned,  and  powerful ;  the  color- 
ing incomparably  rich  in  its  shaded,  delicate,  and  beautiful  sobriety. 
Here  are  clustered  heads,  joined  hands  clasped  fervently  and  con- 
vulsively, bared  foreheads,  intense  glances,  —  some  reddened  by  emo- 
tion, and  others,  on  the  contrary,  pale  and  cold  as  old  ivory  ;  the  two 
acolytes,  one  of  whom  holds  the  censer,  and  wipes  his  eyes  with 
the  back  of  his  sleeve  ;  —  all  this  group  of  men,  differently  moved, 
sobbing,  or  masters  of  themselves,  forms  a  circle  around  the  unique 
head  of  the  saint,  and  the  little  white  crescent  held  like  a  lunar  disk 
in  the  pale  hand  of  the  priest.  It  is  all  inexpressibly  fine. 

Such  is  the  moral  value  of  this  exceptional  page  of  Rubens  at 
Antwerp,  and  —  who  knows  ?  —  perhaps  of  all  the  work  of  Rubens, 
that  I  should  almost  fear  to  profane  it  in  speaking  of  its  exterior 
merits,  which  are  not  less  eminent.  I  will  only  say  that  this  great 
man  has  never  been  more  master  of  his  thought,  his  sentiment,  and 
his  hand ;  his  conception  has  never  been  more  serene  or  of  wider 
range  ;  his  notion  of  the  human  soul  has  never  seemed  more  pro- 
found ;  he  has  never  been  more  noble  or  more  healthful,  richer  in 
color  without  extravagance,  more  scrupulous  in  the  drawing  of  the 
parts,  or  more  irreproachable,  that  is  to  say,  more  surprising  in  his 


RUBENS  AT  THE  ANTWERP  MUSEUM.  79 

execution.  This  marvel  is  dated  1619.  What  noble  years !  The 
time  in  which  he  painted  it  is  not  given,  perhaps  a  few  days  only. 
What  days !  When  this  unequalled  work,  in  which  Rubens  is 
transfigured,  has  been  long  examined,  it  is  impossible  to  look  at 
anything  or  anybody,  —  neither  others,  nor  Rubens  himself,  —  we 
must  for  to-day  leave  the  museum. 


VII. 

• 

RUBENS  AS  A  PORTRAIT  PAINTER. 

Is  Rubens  a  great  portrait  painter,  or  merely  a  good  one  ?  Had 
this  great  painter  of  physical  and  moral  life,  so  skilful  in  rendering 
the  movement  of  the  body  by  a  gesture,  and  that  of  souls  by  the 
play  of  feature ;  this  observer,  so  prompt,  so  exact ;  this  mind,  so  clear 
that  the  ideal  of  human  form  never  for  a  single  instant  distracted  him 
from  his  study  of  the  exterior  of  things  ;  this  painter  of  the  pictur- 
esque, of  accidents,  of  individualities,  of  personal  traits  ;  finally,  this 
master,  the  most  universal  of  all,  —  had  he  really  all  the  aptitudes 
we  suppose,  and  particularly  the  special  faculty  of  representing  the 
human  being  in  its  intimate  resemblance  ? 

Are  the  portraits  of  Rubens  likenesses  ?  I  do  not  think  it  has 
ever  been  said  whether  they  were  or  not.  People  have  confined 
themselves  to  recognizing  the  universality  of  his  gifts,  and  because, 
more  than  any  other,  he  has  employed  the  portrait  as  a  natural  ele- 
ment of  his  pictures,  they  take  for  granted  that  a  man  who  excelled  in 
painting  the  human  being  under  all  circumstances,  acting  and  think- 
ing, ought  from  the  strongest  reasons  to  paint  him  well  in  a  portrait. 
The  question  is  of  some  moment,  for  it  touches  one  of  the  most 


RUBENS  AS  A   PORTRAIT  PAINTER.  8 1 

singular  phenomena  of  this  multiplex  nature,  and  consequently  offers 
an  opportunity  for  studying  nearer  the  real  organism  of  his  genius. 

If  one  adds  to  all  the  portraits  he  has  painted  solely  to  satisfy  the 
desire  of  his  contemporaries  —  kings,  princes,  great  lords,  doctors, 
abbe's,  and  priors  —  the  incalculable  number  of  living  beings  whose 
features  he  has  reproduced  in  his  pictures,  it  might  well  be  said  that 
Rubens  passed  his  life  in  painting  portraits.  Without  dispute  his 
best  works  are  those  where  he  yields  the  greatest  part  to  real  life ;  for 
instance,  his  admirable  picture  of  St.  George,  which  is  nothing  but 
a  family  ex  votot  the  most  curious  document  a  painter  ever  left  con- 
cerning his  domestic  affections.  I  do  not  speak  of  his  own  portrait, 
of  which  he  was  lavish,  nor  those  of  his  two  wives,  of  which  he  made, 
as  is  known,  such  continual  and  indiscreet  use. 

It  was  Rubens's  habit  to  use  nature  for  every  purpose,  to  take 
individuals  from  real  life  and  introduce  them  into  fiction,  because  it 
was  one  of  his  needs, — a  weakness,  as  well  as  a  power  of  his  mind. 
Nature  was  his  great  and  inexhaustible  repertory.  What  were  the 
truths  he  sought  to  tell  ?  Subjects  ?  No.  His  subjects  he  bor- 
rowed from  history,  from  legend,  from  the  gospel,  from  fables,  and 
always  more  or  less  from  his  fancy.  Attitudes,  gestures,  expressions 
of  countenance  ?  Not  at  all.  The  expressions  and  gestures  issued 
naturally  from  himself,  and  were  derived  by  the  logic  of  a  well- 
conceived  subject,  from  the  necessities  of  the  action,  almost  always 
dramatic,  which  he  had  to  render.  What  he  asked  from  nature 
was  what  his  imagination  furnished  him  but  imperfectly,  when  it  was 
necessary  to  wholly  constitute  a  living  person  from  head  to  foot, 

6 


82          THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

living  as  he  desired  him  to  live,  I  mean,  in  the  most  personal  features, 
the  most  praise  characteristics  both  as  an  individual  and  a  type. 
His  types^e7  accepted  rather  than  chose.  He  took  them  as  they 
existed  around  him  in  the  society  of  his  time,  from  all  ranks,  from 
all  classes,  if  necessary  from  all  races,  —  princes,  soldiers,  church- 
men, monks,  tradesmen,  blacksmiths,  boatmen,  especially  hard- 
working men. 

He  had  in  his  own  town,  on  the  quays  of  the  Scheldt,  enough  to 
furnish  all  the  necessities  of  his  great  evangelical  pages.  He  had  a 
lively  feeling  for  the  relation  of  these  people,  continually  offered  by 
life  itself,  to  the  conventionalities  of  his  subject.  When  the  adap- 
tation is  not  very  rigorous,  which  often  happens,  and  good  sense  and 
good  taste  also  are  a  little  shocked,  it  is  then  that  his  love  of  individ- 
ualities gets  the  better  of  the  conventionalities  of  taste  and  good 
sense.  He  never  denied  himself  an  eccentricity,  which  in  his  hands 
became  an  evidence  of  mind,  sometimes  a  happy  audacity.  It  was 
by  his  very  inconsistencies  that  he  triumphed  over  subjects  most 
uncongenial  to  his  nature.  He  put  into  them  the  sincerity,  the  good- 
humor,  the  extraordinary  unrestraint  of  his  free  bursts  ;  the  work 
was  nearly  always  saved  by  an  admirable  bit  of  almost  textual  im- 
itation. 

In  this  respect  he  invented  but  little,  —  he  the  great  inventor.  He 
looked,  informed  himself,  copied  or  translated  from  memory  with  a 
security  of  memory  which  was  equal  to  direct  reproduction.  The 
spectacle  of  the  life  of  courts,  of  the  life  of  churches,  of  monasteries, 
streets,  or  of  the  river,  imprinted  itself  upon  this  sensitive  brain  with 


RUBENS  AS  A   PORTRAIT  PAINTER.  83 

its  most  recognizable  features,  its  sharpest  accent,  its  most  salient  col- 
ors, so  that  beyond  this  reflected  image  of  things  he  imagined  hardly 
anything  but  the  frame  and  the  dramatic  grouping.  His  works  are 
(so  to  speak)  a  theatre,  whose  arrangements  he  regulates,  whose 
decorations  he  prepares,  while  he  creates  the  roles  and  furnishes  life 
to  the  actors.  Original  as  he  is,  affirmative,  resolute,  and  powerful, 
when  he  executes  a  portrait,  whether  from  nature  or  from  the  im- 
mediate memory  of  the  model,  the  gallery  of  his  imaginary  person- 
ages is  poorly  inspired. 

Every  man,  every  woman,  who  has  not  lived  before  him,  and  to 
whom  he  has  not  succeeded  in  giving  the  essential  features  of  human 
life,  are  figures  that  are  failures  from  the  beginning.  This  is  why 
his  evangelical  personages  are  more  human  than  they  should  be,  his 
heroic  figures  below  their  fabulous  r61e,  while  his  mythological  per- 
sonages exist  neither  in  reality  nor  in  a  dream  ;  there  is  a  perpetual 
contradiction  in  the  action  of  the  muscles,  the  lustre  of  the  flesh, 
and  the  total  vacancy  of  the  faces.  It  is  clear  that  humanity  en- 
chants him,  Christian  dogmas  trouble  him  a  little,  and  Olympus 
bores  him  to  death.  Look  at  his  great  allegorical  series  in  the 
Louvre.  It  does  not  take  long  to  discover  his  indecisions  when  he 
creates  a  type,  his  infallible  certitude  when  he  is  informed,  and  to 
understand  what  is  strong  and  what  is  weak  in  his  mind.  There  are 
commonplace  parts,  there  are  others  absolutely  negative  which  are 
fictions  ;  the  superior  parts  that  you  notice  are  portraits.  Whenever 
Marie  de  Medici  enters  the  scene  she  is  perfect.  The  Henri  IV. 
with  the  Portrait  is  a  masterpiece.  No  one  contests  the  absolute 


84          THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

insignificance  of  his  gods,  Mercury,  Apollo,  Saturn,  Jupiter,  or 
Mars. 

In  the  same  way,  in  the  Adoration  of  the  Magi,  there  are  principal 
personages  who  are  always  of  no  account,  and  supernumeraries  who 
are  always  admirable.  The  European  king  does  it  harm.  He  is  well 
known  ;  he  is  the  man  in  the  foreground  who  figures  with  the  Virgin, 
either  standing  or  kneeling  in  the  centre  of  the  composition.  Rubens 
may  dress  him  in  vain  in  purple,  in  ermine  or  gold,  make  him  hold 
the  censer,  offer  a  cup  or  a  ewer,  make  him  young  or  make  him  old, 
make  bald  his  sacerdotal  head  or  cause  it  to  bristle  with  dry  hairs, 
give  him  an  air  collected  or  wild,  gentle  eyes  or  the  glare  of  an  old 
lion,  —  whatever  he  does,  he  is  always  a  commonplace  figure,  whose 
only  r61e  consists  in  wearing  one  of  the  dominant  colors  of  the  pic- 
ture. It  is  the  same  with  the  Asiatic.  On  the  contrary,  the  Ethi- 
opian—  the  grizzled  negro  with  his  bony  flat-nosed  face,  livid,  and 
lighted  by  two  shining  sparks,  the  white  of  his  eyes  and  the  pearls 
of  his  teeth  —  is  invariably  a  masterpiece  of  observation  and  of 
nature,  because  it  is  a  portrait,  and  a  portrait  with  no  alteration 
whatever  from  an  individual. 

What  would  be  the  conclusion  but  that  by  instinct,  necessity,  his 
dominant  faculties,  his  very  infirmities  (for  he  had  them),  Rubens 
more  than  any  other  was  destined  to  make  marvellous  portraits  ?  It 
is  not  so  at  all.  His  portraits  are  feeble,  poorly  studied,  superficially 
constructed,  and  of  but  vague  resemblance.  When  he  is  compared 
to  Titian,  Rembrandt,  Raphael,  Sebastien  del  Piombo,  Velasquez, 
Vandyck,  Holbein,  Antonio  Moro,  —  I  might  exhaust  the  list  of  the 


RUBENS  AS  A   PORTRAIT  PAINTER.  85 

most  diverse  and  great,  and  descend  many  degrees  to  Philippe  de 
Champagne  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  to  the  excellent  portrait 
painters  of  the  eighteenth,  —  it  is  perceived  that  Rubens  was  want- 
ing in  that  attentive  simplicity,  at  once  submissive  and  powerful, 
that  the  study  of  the  human  face  requires,  to  be  perfect. 

Do  you  know  one  portrait  of  his  which  satisfies  you  as  the  result 
of  faithful  and  profound  observation,  which  edifies  you  with  the  per- 
sonality of  its  model,  which  instructs,  and  I  may  say  reassures  you  ? 
Of  all  the  men  of  age  and  rank,  of  such  diverse  character  and  tem- 
perament, whose  portraits  he  has  left  us,  is  there  a  single  one  who 
impresses  himself  upon  the  mind  as  a  particular  and  very  distinct 
person,  and  whom  one  remembers  as  one  does  a  striking  countenance  ? 
At  a  distance  they  are  forgotten ;  seen  together,  they  might  almost 
be  confounded.  The  individualities  of  their  existence  have  not 
clearly  separated  them  in  the  mind  of  the  painter,  and  separate 
them  still  less  in  the  memory  of  those  who  only  know  them  from 
him.  Are  they  like  ?  Yes,  almost.  Are  they  living  ?  They  live 
rather  than  are  living.  I  will  not  say  that  they  are  commonplace, 
but  they  are  not  precise.  I  will  not  say  either  that  the  painter 
has  failed  to  see  them  properly,  but  I  think  he  has  looked  at 
them  lightly,  only  skin  deep,  perhaps  through  the  medium  of  habit, 
doubtless  according  to  a  formula,  and  that  he  has  treated  them, 
whatever  their  sex  or  their  age,  as  women  love,  it  is  said,  to  be 
painted,  —  as  handsome  first,  and  after  that  with  a  likeness.  They 
are  good  for  their  time,  and  not  bad  for  their  rank,  although  Van- 
dyck,  to  take  an  example  beside  the  master,  puts  them  still  more  de- 


86          THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

cidedly  at  their  date  and  in  their  social  surrounding  ;  but  they  have 
the  same  blood,  they  have  especially  the  same  moral  character,  and  all 
the  exterior  features  modelled  on  a  uniform  type.  They  have  the 
same  clear  eye,  wide  open,  with  a  direct  glance,  the  same  com- 
plexion, the  same  mustache,  delicately  curled  up,  lifting  by  two 
black  or  blond  slits  the  corner  of  a  manly  mouth,  that  is  to  say, 
one  that  is  a  little  conventional.  There  is  red  enough  in  the  lips, 
carnation  enough  in  the  cheeks,  roundness  enough  in  the  oval,  to 
proclaim,  with  the  want  of  youth,  a  man  in  his  normal  condition, 
whose  constitution  is  robust,  whose  body  is  healthful,  and  whose 
soul  is  at  rest. 

It  is  the  same  for  the  women,  —  a  clear  complexion,  a  round  fore- 
head, large  temples,  small  chins,  eyes  prominent,  the  same  coloring, 
almost  the  identical  expression,  the  style  of  beauty  peculiar  to  the 
time,  a  breadth  befitting  the  races  of  the  North,  with  a  sort  of  grace 
peculiar  to  Rubens,  which  is  felt  as  the  mingling  of  several  types,  — 
Marie  de  Medici,  the  Infanta  Isabella,  Isabel  Brandt,  Helen  Four- 
ment.  All  the  women  that  he  has  painted  seem  to  have  contracted, 
in  spite  of  themselves  and  in  spite  of  him,  an  inexplicable  familiar 
air,  resulting  from  the  contact  of  his  persistent  memories ;  and  all 
of  them  partake  more  or  less  of  one  or  another  of  these  four  cele- 
brated personages,  less  surely  immortalized  by  history  than  by  his 
brush.  They  themselves  have  together  a  sort  of  family  air  which 
is  largely  owing  to  Rubens. 

Can  you  picture  to  yourself  the  women  of  the  courts  of  Louis 
XIII.  and  Louis  XIV.  ?  Have  you  a  very  clear  idea  of  Mesdames 


RUBENS  AS  A   PORTRAIT  PAINTER.  87 

de  Longueville,  de  Montbazon,  de  Chevreuse,  de  Sable,  of  that 
beautiful  Duchesse  de  Guemen£e,  to  whom  Rubens,  interrogated  by 
the  Queen,  dared  to  give  the  prize  of  beauty  as  the  most  charming 
goddess  of  the  Luxembourg  Olympus ;  of  that  incomparable  Made- 
moiselle du  Vigean,  the  idol  of  society  at  Chantilly,  who  inspired 
so  great  a  passion,  and  such  a  quantity  of  little  verses  ?  Can  you 
see  any  more  distinctly  Mademoiselle  de  la  Valliere,  or  Mesdames 
de  Montespan,  de  Fontanges,  de  Sevign6,  and  de  Grignan  ?  And  if 
you  cannot  perceive  them  as  you  would  wish,  whose  fault  is  it? 

Is  it  the  fault  of  that  epoch  of  display,  of  politeness,  of  artificial 
manners,  both  pompous  and  forced?  Is  it  the  fault  of  the  women 
themselves,  who  all  sought  a  certain  court  ideal  ?  Have  they  been 
ill-observed,  unscrupulously  painted  ?  Or  was  it  agreed  that  among 
so  many  kinds  of  grace  or  beauty,  there  was  but  one  that  was  in 
good  style  and  good  taste  and  according  to  etiquette  ?  One 
hardly  knows  just  what  nose,  what  mouth,  what  oval,  what  com- 
plexion, what  glance,  what  degree  of  seriousness  or  freedom,  of 
delicacy  or  plumpness,  or  indeed  what  soul,  should  be  given  to  each 
of  these  celebrated  people,  become  so  alike  in  their  imposing  roles 
of  favorites,  Frondeuses,  princesses,  and  great  ladies.  We  know 
what  they  thought  of  themselves,  and  how  they  painted  themselves 
or  how  they  were  painted,  according  as  they  made  their  own 
literary  portraits  or  allowed  them  to  be  made  by  others.  From 
the  sister  of  Cond£  to  Madame  d'Epinay,  that  is,  through  the  whole 
seventeenth  century  and  the  larger  half  of  the  eighteenth,  we  have 
only  fine  complexions,  pretty  mouths,  superb  teeth  and  shoulders, 


88          THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

and  admirable  arms  and  throats.  They  undressed  themselves  a 
good  deal,  or  let  themselves  be  undressed,  without  displaying  any- 
thing but  rather  cold  perfections  modelled  on  an  absolutely  hand- 
some type  according  to  the  fashion  and  ideal  of  the  time.  Neither 
Mademoiselle  de  Scudery,  nor  Voiture,  nor  Chapelain,  nor  Des- 
marets,  nor  any  of  the  witty  writers  who  occupied  themselves  with 
their  charms,  have  had  the  idea  of  leaving  us  a  portrait  of  them 
perhaps-  less  flattered  but  more  faithful.  It  is  with  difficulty  that 
one  perceives,  here  and  there  in  the  gallery  of  the  H6tel  de  Ram- 
bouillet,  a  complexion  less  divine,  lips  less  purely  outlined  or  of  a 
less  perfect  carnation. 

The  most  truthful  and  the  greatest  portrait  painter  of  his  time, 
St.  Simon,  was  necessary  to  teach  us  that  a  woman  might  be  charm- 
ing without  being  perfect,  and  that  the  Duchesse  de  Maine  and  the 
Duchess  of  Burgundy,  for  instance,  had  many  attractions  of  physi- 
ognomy, quite  natural  grace  and  fire,  the  one  with  her  limp,  and 
the  other  with  her  dark  complexion,  her  thin  figure,  her  turbulent 
expression  and  imperfect  teeth.  Up  to  that  time  the  hand  of  the 
image-maker  was  directed  by  the  neither  too  much  nor  too  little 
principle.  An  inexpressible  impressiveness,  a  solemnity,  some- 
thing like  the  three  scenic  unities,  the  perfection  of  a  fine  phrase, 
had  clothed  them  all  with  the  same  impersonal,  almost  royal  as- 
pect, which  for  us  moderns  is  the  opposite  of  charming.  Times 
changed ;  the  eighteenth  century  destroyed  many  formulas,  and 
consequently  treated  the  human  countenance  with  no  more  respect 
than  the  other  unities.  But  our  age  has  restored,  with  other  tastes 


RUBENS  AS  A   PORTRAIT  PAINTER.  89 

and  other  fashions,  the  same  tradition  of  portraits  without  type, 
and  the  same  ostentation,  less  solemn,  but  yet  more  objectionable. 
Recall  the  portraits  of  the  Directory,  of  the  Empire  and  the  Resto- 
ration, those  of  Girodet  and  of  Gerard.  I  except  the  portraits  of 
David,  but  not  all,  and  a  few  of  those  of  Prudhon.  Form  a  gallery 
of  the  great  actresses  and  great  ladies,  —  Mars,  Duchesnois,  Georges, 
the  Empress  Josephine,  Madame  Tallien,  also  that  unique  head  of 
Madame  de  Stael,  and  even  that  pretty  Madame  Recamier, —  and 
tell  me  whether  it  lives,  is  as  characteristic  and  diversified  as  a 
series  of  portraits  by  Latour,  Houdon,  and  Caffieri. 

Well !  all  the  proportions  being  maintained,  this  is  what  I  find 
in  Rubens's  portraits,  —  great  uncertainty  and  conventionality,  the 
same  chivalrous  air  in  the  men  and  the  same  princess-like  beauty 
in  the  women,  but  nothing  individual,  which  arrests  the  attention, 
impresses,  causes  reflection,  and  is  not  forgotten.  Not  one  plainness 
of  feature,  not  one  meagreness  of  contour,  not  one  inharmonious 
eccentricity  of  any  feature. 

Have  you  ever  perceived  in  his  world  of  thinkers,  of  politicians, 
of  men  of  war,  any  characteristic  accident  wholly  personal,  like 
Condi's  falcon  head,  the  wild  eyes  and  nocturnal  mien  of  Descartes, 
the  fine  and  adorable  countenance  of  Rotrou,  the  angular  and  pen- 
sive face  of  Pascal,  and  the  never  to  be  forgotten  glance  of  Richelieu  ? 
How  is  it  that  these  human  types  swarmed  before  the  great  obser- 
vers, and  not  one  really  original  type  sat  to  Rubens  ?  Must  I  finish 
explaining  myself  at  one  blow  by  the  most  rigorous  of  examples  ? 
Imagine  Holbein  with  the  personages  of  Rubens,  and  you  see  at 


90          THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND, 

once  appear  a  new  human  gallery,  very  interesting  for  the  moralist, 
equally  admirable  for  the  history  of  life  and  the  history  of  art, 
which  Rubens,  we  must  agree,  would  not  have  enriched  by  one  single 
type. 

The  Brussels  Museum  possesses  four  portraits  by  Rubens,  and  it 
is  precisely  in  remembering  them  that  these  reflections  come  to  me 
afterwards.  These  four  portraits  represent  justly  enough  the  power- 
ful and  the  mediocre  side  of  his  talent  as  a  portrait  painter.  Two 
of  them  are  very  fine,  the  Archduke  Albert  and  the  Infanta  Isabella. 
They  were  both  ordered  to  adorn  the  Arch  of  Triumph  erected  in 
the  Place  de  Merr,  on  the  occasion  of  the  entry  of  Ferdinand  of 
Austria,  and  it  is  said  that  each  was  executed  in  a  day.  They  are 
larger  than  life,  conceived,  designed,  and  treated  in  the  Italian  man- 
ner, ample  and  decorative,  a  little  theatrical,  but  very  ingeniously  ap- 
propriate to  th'eir  destination.  There  is  in  them  so  much  Veronese 
melted  into  the  Flemish  manner  that  Rubens  never  had  more  style, 
and  yet  was  never  more  completely  himself.  There  is  here  seen 
a  way  of  filling  a  canvas,  of  composing  a  grand  arabesque  with  a 
bust,  two  arms  and  two  hands  diversely  occupied,  of  increasing  a 
border,  and  rendering  a  doublet  majestically  severe,  of  giving  bold- 
ness to  the  contour,  of  painting  thickly  and  flatly,  which  is  not 
habitual  in  his  portraits,  and  which  recalls,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
best  parts  of  his  pictures.  The  likeness  is  of  the  kind  which  im- 
presses from  afar  by  a  few  just  and  brief  accents  that  might  be 
called  a  resemblance  of  effect  The  work  is  of  extraordinary  rapidity, 
assurance,  and  seriousness,  and,  for  the  style,  of  remarkable  beauty. 


RUBENS  AS  A   PORTRAIT  PAINTER.  91 

It  is  quite  superb.  Rubens  is  there  with  his  habits,  on  his  own 
ground,  in  his  element  of  fancy,  and  of  very  lucid,  but  hasty  and  em- 
phatic observation.  He  would  not  have  proceeded  otherwise  for  a 
picture :  success  was  certain. 

The  two  others,  bought  recently,  are  very  celebrated,  and  a  great 
price  is  attached  to  them.  Dare  I  say  that  they  are  among  his 
weakest  works  ?  They  are  two  portraits  of  familiar  order,  two  little 
busts,  rather  short  and  rather  scanty,  presented  in  full  face,  with  no 
arrangement,  cut  in  the  canvas  with  no  more  preparation  than  if 
they  were  studies  of  heads. 

With  much  brilliancy,  relief,  and  apparent  life,  of  extremely  skilful 
but  succinct  rendering,  they  have  precisely  this  fault  of  being  seen 
from  near  and  seen  lightly,  made  with  application  and  little  studied, 
—  in  a  word,  they  are  treated  by  surfaces.  The  putting  together 
is  correct,  the  drawing  insignificant.  The  painter  has  given  accents 
which  resemble  life  ;  the  observer  has  not  marked  a  single  trait  which 
intimately  resembles  his  model.  Everything  is  on  the  epidermis. 
From  the  physical  point  of  view  we  look  for  something  beneath,  which 
has  not  been  observed  ;  from  the  moral  point  we  seek  an  inwardness 
that  has  not  been  divined.  The  painting  is  flat  upon  the  canvas, 
the  life  is  but  skin  deep.  The  man  is  young,  about  thirty  years 
of  age  ;  his  mouth  is  mobile,  his  eye  moist,  his  glance  direct  and 
clear,  —  nothing  more,  nothing  beyond,  nothing  below.  Who  is  this 
young  man  ?  What  has  he  done  ?  Has  he  thought  ?  Has  he  suf- 
fered ?  Has  he  himself  lived  on  the  surface  of  things  as  he  is  rep- 
resented without  consistency  on  the  surface  of  a  canvas  ?  These 


92          THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

are  the  characteristic  indications  that  a  Holbein  would  give  us  be- 
fore thinking  of  the  rest,  which  cannot  be  expressed  by  a  spark  in 
an  eye  or  a  red  touch  on  a  nostril. 

The  art  of  painting  is  perhaps  more  indiscreet  than  any  other. 
It  is  the  indisputable  witness  of  the  mental  state  of  the  painter  at 
the  moment  he  held  the  brush.  What  he  intended  to  do  he  did  ; 
that  which  he  desired  but  feebly  is  seen  in  his  indecisions  ;  what 
he  did  not  wish  for  is,  with  even  better  reason,  absent  from  his  work, 
whatever  he  or  others  may  say.  An  abstraction,  a  forgetfulness, 
a  warmer  sensation,  a  less  profound  insight,  application  wanting,  a 
less  hearty  love  for  what  he  is  studying,  whether  he  is  tired  of 
painting  or  has  a  passion  for  painting,  —  all  the  shades  of  his  nature, 
even  to  the  intermittent  character  of  his  sensitiveness,  are  manifest 
in  the  works  of  the  painter  as  clearly  as  if  he  took  us  into  his  con- 
fidence. One  can  say  with  certainty  what  is  the  deportment  of  a 
scrupulous  portrait  painter  to  his  models,  and  in  the  same  way  one 
can  fancy  what  Rubens  was  to  his. 

When  one  looks,  a  few  paces  from  the  portraits  of  which  I  am 
speaking,  at  the  portrait  of  the  Duke  of  Alva  by  Antonio  Moro, 
he  is  certain  that,  grand  nobleman  as  he  was,  and  wholly  accus- 
tomed to  painting  great  lords,  Antonio  Moro  was  very  serious,  very 
attentive,  and  a  good  deal  moved  at  the  moment  when  he  seated 
himself  before  this  tragic  personage,  dry,  angular,  choked  in  his 
dark  armor,  jointed  like  an  automaton,  with  an  eye  which  looks 
sidelong  up  and  down,  cold,  hard,  and  black,  as  if  the  light  of  heaven 
had  never  touched  its  surface. 


RUBENS  AS  A   PORTRAIT  PAINTER.  93 

On  the  contrary,  on  the  day  when  Rubens  painted,  to  please  them, 
the  Seigneur  Charles  de  Cordes  and  Jacqueline  his  wife,  he  was 
undoubtedly  in  a  good  humor,  but  absent-minded,  sure  of  his  work, 
and  in  a  hurry  as  he  always  was.  It  was  in  1618,  the  year  of  the 
Miraculous  Draught.  He  was  forty-one  years  old,  in  the  full  tide 
of  his  talent,  his  glory,  and  his  success.  He  did  everything  rapidly. 
The  Miraculous  Draught  had  just  cost  him  ten  days'  labor.  The 
two  young  people  had  been  married  October  30,  1617  ;  the  portrait  of 
the  husband  was  made  to  please  the  wife,  that  of  the  wife  to  please 
the  husband,  so  you  can  see  under  what  conditions  the  work  was 
done,  and  you  can  imagine  the  time  he  took  for  it ;  the  result  was 
a  painting  hasty  and  brilliant,  an  agreeable  likeness,  —  an  ephemeral 
work. 

Many,  I  may  say  the  greater  part,  of  Rubens's  portraits  are  the 
same.  Look  in  the  Louvre  at  that  of  the  Baron  de  Vicq.  (No.  458 
of  the  catalogue),  in  the  same  style,  the  same  quality,  almost  of  the 
same  period  as  the  portrait  of  the-  Seigneur  de  Cordes  of  which  I 
speak ;  look  too  at  that  of  Elizabeth  of  France,  and  the  one  of  a  lady 
of  the  Boonen  family  (No.  461),  —  all  agreeable,  brilliant,  light,  alert 
works,  forgotten  as  soon  as  seen.  See,  on  the  other  hand,  the  por- 
trait sketch  of  his  second  wife,  Helen,  with  her  two  children,  —  that 
admirable  sketch,  that  scarcely  indicated  dream,  left  there  by  chance 
or  purposely  ;  and  if  you  look  over  the  three  works  preceding  this 
with  a  little  reflection,  I  shall  not  need  to  persist  to  make  myself 
understood. 

To  resume,  Rubens,  to  consider  him  only  as  a  portrait  painter, 


94         THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

is  a  man  who  dreamed  in  his  own  way  when  he  had  the  time,  with 
an  eye  admirably  true,  of  slight  depth  of  insight,  which  was  a  mirror 
rather  than  a  penetrating  instrument,  a  man  who  occupied  himself 
little  with  others,  much  with  himself;  morally,  and  physically  a  man 
of  the  exterior,  and  outwardly,  marvellously  but  exclusively,  fitted  to 
seize  the  exterior  of  things.  This  is  why  it  is  proper  to  distinguish 
in  Rubens  two  observers  of  very  unequal  power,  of  hardly  com- 
parable artistic  value,  —  one  who  made  the  life  of  others  serve  the 
needs  of  his  conceptions,  subordinates  his  models,  taking  from  them 
only  what  he  needs ;  and  the  other,  who  remains  inferior  to  his  task, 
because  he  ought,  and  does  not  know  how,  to  subordinate  himself 
to  his  model. 

This  is  why  he  has  sometimes  magnificently  observed  and  again 
greatly  neglected  the  human  face.  This  is  why  his  portraits  are 
all  a  little  alike,  and  a  little  like  him  ;  why  they  are  wanting  in  a 
life  of  their  own,  and  in  that  lack  moral  resemblance  and  interior 
life,  while  his  portrait  personages  have  just  that  degree  of  striking 
personality  which  increases  still  more  the  effect  of  their  r61e,  a  force 
of  expression  which  does  not  permit  you  to  doubt  that  they  have 
lived ;  and  as  to  their  mental  calibre,  it  is  evident  that  they  all  have 
an  active  soul,  ardent  and  prompt  to  spring  forth,  just  upon  their 
lips,  the  one  that  Rubens  has  put  into  them,  —  almost  the  same  in 
all,  for  it  is  his  own. 


VIII. 

THE  TOMB  OF  RUBENS. 

I  HAVE  not  yet  taken  you  to  Rubens's  tomb  at  St.  Jacques.  The 
sepulchral  stone  is  placed  before  the  altar,  and  the  inscription  on 
the  tomb  reads  thus :  Non  sui  tantum  saculi,  sed  et  omnis  avi 
Apelles  dici  meruit. 

With  this  approach  to  an  hyperbole,  which  neither  adds  to  nor 
detracts  from  the  universal  glory  nor  the  very  certain  immortality 
of  Rubens,  these  two  lines  of  funereal  eulogium  make  one  remember 
that  a  few  feet  below  these  flags  lie  the  ashes  of  this  great  man.  He 
was  placed  there  the  first  day  of  June,  1640.  Two  years  later,  by 
an  authorization  of  March  14,  1642,  his  widow  finally  consecrated 
to  him  the  little  chapel  behind  the  choir,  and  placed  in  it  the  fine 
picture  of  St.  George,  one  of  the  most  charming  works  of  the  master, 
—  a  work  wholly  formed,  says  tradition,  of  the  portraits  of  members 
of  his  family,  that  is  to  say,  of  his  affections,  his  dead  loves,  his  living 
loves,  his  regrets,  his  hopes,  the  past,  present,  and  future  of  his 
house. 

You  know,  in  fact,  that  to  all  the  personages  who  compose  this 
so-called  Holy  Family  are  attributed  resemblances  of  priceless  value. 


96          THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

Side  by  side  in  it  are  his  two  wives,  first,  the  fair  Helen  Fourment, 
a  child  of  sixteen  when  he  married  her  in  1630,  a  quite  young  wo- 
man of  twenty-six  when  he  died,  fair,  plump,  amiable,  and  gentle, 
en  grand  ctishabilti,  naked  to  the  waist. 

There  also  is  his  daughter,  ois  niece,  the  celebrated  girl  of  the 
Chapeau  de  Faille,  his  father,  his  grandfather,  —  finally,  his  younger 
son  under  the  features  of  an  angel,  a  youthful  and  delicious  babe, 
perhaps  the  most  adorable  child  he  ever  painted.  As  to  Rubens 
himself,  he  figures  there  in  armor  shining  with  sombre  steel  and 
silver,  holding  in  his  hand  the  banner  of  St.  George.  He  is  growing 
old  and  is  thinner,  his  hair  is  grizzled,  he  is  dishevelled,  a  little  worn, 
but  superb  with  inward  fire.  Without  posturing  or  emphasis  he  has 
conquered  the  dragon,  and  planted  upon  him  his  mailed  foot.  How 
old  was  he  then  ?  If  the  date  of  his  second  marriage  is  recalled,  and 
the  age  of  his  wife  and  the  child  born  of  this  marriage,  Rubens  must 
have  been  fifty-six  or  fifty-eight  years  of  age.  Almost  forty  years 
before  the  brilliant  combat  had  begun  which,  impossible  for  others, 
but  easy  for  him  who  was  always  successful,  he  had  waged  against 
life.  In  what  enterprises,  in  what  order  of  activity,  of  struggle,  and 
success,  had  he  not  triumphed  ? 

If  ever,  at  the  solemn  hour  of  self-examination,  after  the  lapse  of 
years  and  the  accomplishment  of  a  career,  at  that  moment  of  ab- 
solute certainty,  a  man  had  a  right  to  paint  himself  as  a  victor,  it 
was  certainly  he. 

The  thought,  as  you  see,  is  most  simple  ;  it  needs  not  to  be  sought 
after.  If  the  picture  conceals  an  emotion,  that  emotion  can  easily 


THE   TOMB   OF  RUBENS.  97 

be  communicated  to  any  man  who  has  any  warmth  of  heart,  who 
can  be  moved  by  glory,  and  who  makes  for  himself  a  second  religion 
of  the  memory  of  such  men. 

One  day,  towards  the  end  of  his  career,  in  full  glory,  perhaps  in  deep 
repose,  under  an  august  title,  invoking  the  Virgin  and  the  sole 
saint  whose  own  image  he  would  have  permitted  himself  to  assume, 
it  pleased  him  to  paint  within  a  very  small  frame  (about  two  metres) 
whatever  there  had  been  that  was  venerable  and  seductive  in  the 
beings  he  had  loved.  He  owed  this  last  glorification  to  those  who 
had  borne  him,  to  those  who  had  shared,  beautified,  charmed,  en- 
nobled with  their  perfume  of  grace,  tenderness,  and  excellence  his 
noble  and  laborious  career.  He  gave  it  to  them  as  fully,  in  as 
masterly  a  way,  as  could  be  expected  from  his  affectionate  hand, 
his  genius,  and  his  great  power.  He  put  into  it  his  science,  his 
piety,  his  most  rare  carefulness.  He  made  of  the  work  what  you 
know,  —  an  infinitely  touching  marvel  as  the  work  of  a  son,  a  father, 
and  a  husband  ;  forever  admirable  as  a  work  of  art. 

Shall  I  describe  it  to  you  ?  The  arrangement  is  one  of  those  that 
a  catalogue  note  is  sufficient  to  indicate.  Shall  I  tell  you  its  par- 
ticular merits  ?  They  are  all  the  painter's  qualities  in  their  familiar 
acceptation,  under  their  most  precious  form.  They  do  not  give 
of  him  a  new  or  a  more  lofty  idea,  but  one  that  is  finer  and  more 
exquisite. 

It  is  the  Rubens  of  his  best  days,  with  more  naturalness,  precision, 
caprice,  richness  of  coloring,  and  power  without  effort ;  with  a  more 
tender  eye,  a  more  caressing  hand  ;  a  more  loving  labor,  at  once 

7 


98          THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

more  intimate  and  more  profound.  If  I  used  technical  terms,  I 
should  spoil  the  greater  part  of  those  subtle  things  which  should  be 
rendered  with  the  pure  language  of  idea  in  order  to  preserve  their 
character  and  their  value. 

Little  as  it  cost  me  to  study  the  mechanician  in  such  a  practical 
picture  as  the  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes,  at  Mechlin,  it  is  equally 
befitting  to  ease  and  purify  the  manner  of  speech  when  the  concep- 
tion of  Rubens  is  elevated,  as  it  is  in  the  Communion  of  St.  Francis 
of  Assisi,  or  when  his  manner  of  painting  is  penetrated  at  once  by 
spirit,  feeling,  ardor,  conscientiousness,  affection  for  those  he  is  paint- 
ing, and  attachment  to  what  he  does,  —  the  ideal,  in  a  word,  as  in 
the  St.  George.  . 

Has  Rubens  ever  been  more  perfect  ?  I  think  not.  Has  he  been 
as  perfect  ?  I  have  nowhere  observed  it.  There  are  in  the  lives 
of  the  great  artists  these  works  of  predestination,  not  the  largest, 
nor  always  exhibiting  the  greatest  knowledge,  sometimes  the  very 
humblest,  which,  by  a  fortuitous  conjunction  of  all  the  gifts  of  the 
man  and  the  artist,  have  expressed  unconsciously  to  themselves,  the 
pure  essence  of  their  genius;  —  of  this  number  is  the  St.  George. 

This  picture,  moreover,  marks,  if  not  the  end,  at  least  the  last 
five  years  of  Rubens's  life,  and  by  a  sort  of  grand  coquetry  which 
is  not  unbefitting  the  things  of  the  spirit,  he  manifests  that  this 
magnificent  organization  knew  neither  fatigue  nor  relaxation  nor 
decline.  Thirty-five  years,  at  least,  had  elapsed  between  the  Trinity 
in  the  Antwerp  Museum  and  the  St.  George.  Which  is  the  younger 
of  the  two  pictures  ?  At  which  moment  had  he  the  most  fire,  the 


THE   TOMB  OF  RUBENS.  99 

most  vivid  love  of  all  things,  and  the  most  suppleness  in  all  the 
organs  of  his  genius  ? 

His  life  had  almost  made  its  revolution  ;  it  could  be  closed  and 
measured.  It  seemed  as  if  he  foresaw  the  end  on  the  day  when  he 
glorified  himself  and  his  family.  He  also  had  erected  and  nearly 
finished  his  monument ;  he  could  say  this  to  himself  with  as  much 
assurance  as  others,  without  self-glorification.  Only  five  or  six 
years  more  of  life  remained  to  him.  He  was  happy,  peaceable,  a 
little  weary  of  politics  ;  retired  from  ambassadorial  life,  and  more  his 
own  than  ever.  Had  he  well  spent  his  life?  had  he  deserved  well 
of  his  country,  his  time,  and  himself?  He  had  unique  faculties  ; 
how  did  he  use  them  ?  Destiny  heaped  honors  upon  him ;  did  he 
ever  fail  to  merit  his  destiny?  In  this  grand  life,  so  distinct,  so 
clear,  so  brilliant,  so  adventurous  and  yet  so  pure,  so  correct  in  its 
most  astonishing  events,  so  luxurious  and  so  simple,  so  troubled 
and  so  exempt  from  all  littleness,  so  divided  and  so  fruitful,  can 
you  discover  one  stain  that  causes  regret  ?  He  was  fortunate ;  was 
he  ungrateful  ?  He  had  his  trials ;  was  he  ever  bitter  ?  He  loved 
much  and  warmly ;  was  he  forgetful  ? 

He  was  born  at  Spiegen,  in  exile,  on  the  threshold  of  a  prison, 
of  a  mother  admirably  upright  and  generous,  of  a  cultivated  father, 
who  was  a  learned  doctor,  but  a  man  of  slight  feeling,  of  tolerably 
weak  conscience,  and  of  a  character  without  great  consistency. 
When  Rubens  was  fourteen,  he  was  among  the  pages  of  a  princess ; 
at  seventeen  he  was  in  the  studios;  at  twenty  years  he  is  mature, 
and  a  master.  At  twenty-nine  he  returned  from  a  journey  of  study 


100       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

as  from  a  foreign  victory,  and  he  entered  his  home  in  triumph.  They 
asked  to  see  his  studies,  and,  so  to  speak,  he  could  show  nothing 
but  works.  He  left  behind  him  strange  pictures  which  were  at 
once  understood  and  relished.  He  had  taken  possession  of  Italy 
in  the  name  of  Flanders,  planted  from  city  to  city  the  marks  of 
his  passage,  founding  on  the  way  his  own  renown,  that  of  his  country, 
and  something  more  still,  an  art  unknown  to  Italy.  He  brought 
back,  as  trophies,  marbles,  engravings,  pictures,  fine  works  by  the 
best  masters,  and,  above  all,  a  new  and  national  art,  the  most  vast 
in  surface  and  the  most  extraordinary  in  resources  of  all  the  arts 
known. 

In  proportion  as  his  fame  increased  and  radiated,  and  his  talent 
was  noised  abroad,  his  personality  seemed  to  enlarge,  his  brain  to 
dilate,  his  faculties  to  multiply  with  the  demands  made  upon  him, 
and  those  he  made  of  them.  Was  he  an  astute  politician  ?  His 
policy  appears  to  me  to  have  clearly,  faithfully,  and  nobly  compre- 
hended and  transmitted  the  desires  or  wishes  of  his  masters ;  he 
pleased  by  his  noble  mien,  charmed  all  who  approached  him  by  his 
wit,  his  cultivation,  his  conversation,  his  character,  and  seems  to 
have  been  still  more  seductive  by  the  indefatigable  presence  of  mind 
of  his  painter's  genius.  He  would  arrive,  often  with  great  pomp, 
present  his  letters  of  credence,  converse  and  paint.  He  made  por- 
traits of  princes  and  kings,  mythological  pictures  for  palaces,  re- 
ligious ones  for  cathedrals.  It  can  hardly  be  told  which  has  the 
most  distinction,  —  Peter  Paul  Rubens  pictor,  or  the  Chevalier  Ru- 
bens, accredited  plenipotentiary  ;  but  we  have  every  reason  to  believe 


THE   TOMB  OF  RUBENS.  IOI 

that  the  artist  was  a  singular  help  to  the  diplomate.  He  succeeded 
in  all  things  to  the  satisfaction  of  those  whom  he  served  with  his 
speech  and  his  talent.  The  sole  embarrassments,  the  sole  delays, 
and  the  rare  annoyances  perceived  in  his  journeys,  so  picturesquely 
divided  between  business,  galas,  cavalcades,  and  painting,  never  came 
from  sovereigns.  The  real  statesmen  were  more  punctilious  and 
less  easy, — witness  his  quarrel  with  Philippe  d'Arenberg,  Duke  of 
Aerschot,  concerning  the  last  mission  with  which  he  was  charged 
in  Holland.  Was  this  the  only  wound  he  received  in  the  discharge 
of  his  delicate  functions  ?  It  was  at  least  the  sole  cloud  observed 
from  a  distance,  that  casts  the  slightest  bitterness  over  a  radiant  ex- 
istence. In  everything  else  he  was  fortunate.  His  life  from  one  end 
to  the  other  was  one  of  those  that  make  life  lovable.  In  every 
circumstance  he  was  a  man  who  was  an  honor  to  mankind. 

He  was  handsome,  perfectly  well-bred,  and  cultivated.  He  retained 
from  his  hasty  early  education  the  taste  for  languages,  and  facility 
in  speaking  them.  He  wrote  and  spoke  Latin,  he  was  fond  of 
healthy  and  strong  reading ;  they  amused  him  with  Plutarch  and 
Seneca  while  he  was  painting,  and  "  he  was  equally  attentive  to 
both  reading  and  painting."  He  lived  in  the  greatest  luxury,  in- 
habited a  princely  dwelling ;  he  had  valuable  horses  which  he  rode 
every  evening,  a  unique  collection  of  works  of  art  with  which  he 
delighted  his  hours  of  repose.  He  was  regular,  methodical,  and  cold 
in  the  discipline  of  his  private  life,  in  the  administration  of  his  work, 
in  the  government  of  his  mind,  in  a  certain  way,  in  the  fortifying 
and  healthful  hygiene  of  his  genius.  He  was  simple  and  plain, 


1O2       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

of  an  exemplary  fidelity  in  his  relations  with  his  friends,  sympa- 
thetic with  all  talent,  inexhaustible  in  encouragements  to  those  who 
were  making  a  beginning.  There  was  no  success  which  he  did  not 
aid  with  his  purse  or  his  praise.  His  magnanimity  with  regard  to 
Brauwer  is  a  celebrated  episode  of  his  benevolent  life,  and  one  of 
the  most  living  witnesses  that  he  has  furnished  of  his  spirit  of  fra- 
ternity. He  adored  everything  that  was  beautiful,  and  never  sepa- 
rated from  it  what  was  good. 

He  experienced  the  accidents  of  his  grand  official  life  without 
being  either  dazzled  by  them,  or  lessened  in  character,  or  sensi- 
bly troubled  in  his  domestic  habits.  Fortune  spoiled  him  as  little 
as  did  honors.  Women  no  more  demoralized  him  than  princes. 
No  well-known  gallantries  are  attributed  to  him  ;  on  the  contrary, 
he  was  always  seen  at  home,  with  regular  habits,  in  his  domestic 
surroundings  from  1609  to  1626  with  his  first  wife,  from  1630  with 
the  second,  with  numerous  fine  children,  assiduous  friends,  —  that 
is  to  say,  amusements,  affections,  and  duties,  all  things  which  kept 
his  mind  in  repose,  and  helped  him  to  bear  with  the  natural  ease  of 
a  Colossus  the  daily  burden  of  a  superhuman  labor.  Everything 
was  simple  in  his  occupations  ;  whether  complicated,  agreeable,  or 
overwhelming,  everything  is  honest  in  this  untroubled  home.  His 
life  is  in  full  light ;  it  is  broad  daylight  there  as  in  his  pictures  ; 
not  the  shadow  of  a  mystery,  not  one  grief,  except  the  sincere 
sorrow  of  his  first  widowhood  ;  no  suspicious  circumstances,  nothing 
which  one  is  obliged  to  imply,  nor  which  is  a  matter  of  conjecture, 
except  one  thing,  the  mystery  of  this  incomprehensible  fecundity. 


THE   TOMB  OF  RUBENS.  IOJ 

"  He  solaced  himself,"  writes  Taine,  "  by  creating  worlds  ; "  *  in 
which  ingenious  definition  I  see  but  one  word  to  correct.  Solace 
would  suggest  tension,  the  malady  of  over-fulness,  that  is  never  to 
be  remarked  in  this  thoroughly  healthy  mind,  which  is  never  troub- 
led. He  created,  as  a  tree  bears  fruit,  with  no  more  uneasiness  or 
effort.  When  did  he  think  ?  Diu  noctuque  incubando,  —  such  was 
his  Latin  device,  which  means  that  he  reflected  before  painting,  as 
can  be  seen  from  his  sketches,  projects,  and  draughts.  In  truth, 
the  improvisation  of  the  hand  was  the  successor  of  improvisations 
of  mind  ;  there  was  the  same  certainty  and  the  same  facility  of  utter- 
ance in  one  case  as  in  the  other.  His  was  a  soul  without  storms, 
or  languors,  or  torments,  or  chimeras.  If  ever  the  melancholy  of  toil 
left  its  trace  anywhere,  it  was  neither  on  the  features  nor  in  the 
pictures  of  Rubens.  By  his  birth,  in  the  midst  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, he  belonged  to  that  mighty  race  of  thinkers  and  men  of  action 
in  whom  action  and  thought  were  one.  He  was  a  painter  as  he 
would  have  been  a  soldier ;  he  made  his  pictures  as  he  would  have 
made  war,  with  as  much  coolness  as  ardor,  combining  skilfully,  decid- 
ing quickly,  and  trusting,  besides,  to  the  surety  of  his  glance  on  the 
field.  He  takes  things  as  they  are,  his  fine  faculties  just  as  he  has 
received  them ;  he  exercises  them  as  fully  as  a  man  can,  pushes 
them  to  their  full  extent,  asks  of  them  nothing  beyond,  and  with 
a  clear  conscience  in  this  regard  he  pursues  his  labor  with  the  help 
of  God. 

His  painted  work  comprises  about  fifteen   hundred   productions, 

*  H.  Taine,  Philosophy  of  Art  in  the  Netherlands. 


IO4       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

the  most  immense  result  that  ever  issued  from  one  brain.  To  ap- 
proach such  a  figure,  we  must  add  together  the  lives  of  several  of 
the  men  most  fertile  in  productiveness.  If,  independently  of  the 
number,  the  importance,  the  dimensions,  and  the  complicated  char- 
acter of  his  works  be  considered,  it  is  an  astonishing  spectacle,  giv- 
ing of  human  faculties  the  most  lofty,  even,  we  might  say,  the  most 
religious  idea. 

Such  is  the  teaching  which  seems  to  me  to  result  from  the  ampli- 
tude and  power  of  a  soul.  In  this  respect  he  is  unique,  and  in 
every  way  he  is  one  of  the  grandest  specimens  of  humanity.  We 
must  in  art  go  back  to  Raphael,  Leonardo,  and  Michael  Angelo,  to 
the  demigods  themselves,  to  find  his  equals,  and  in  certain  things 
still  his  masters.  Nothing,  it  is  said,  was  wanting  to  him  "  except 
the  very  pure  instincts  and  the  very  noble."  It  is  true  that  in  the 
world  of  the  beautiful  two  or  three  spirits  can  be  found,  who  have 
gone  farther,  with  a  more  lofty  flight,  who  consequently  have  seen 
more  nearly  the  divine  Light  and  the  Eternal  Truths.  There  are 
also  in  the  moral  world,  in  that  of  sentiments,  visions,  and  dreams, 
depths  into  which  Rembrandt  alone  has  descended,  which  Rubens 
has  not  penetrated  and  has  not  even  perceived. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  has  taken  possession  of  the  earth  as  no 
other  man  has.  Spectacles  are  his  domain.  His  eye  is  the  most 
marvellous  prism  that  has  ever  been  given  us,  of  the  light  and  color 
of  objects,  of  true  and  magnificent  ideas.  Dramas,  passions,  atti- 
tudes of  the  body,  expressions  of  countenance,  that  is  to  say,  the 
whole  man  in  the  multifarious  incidents  of  human  life,  pass  through 


THE   TOMB  OF  RUBENS.  105 

his  brain,  take  from  it  stronger  features,  more  robust  forms,  become 
amplified  but  not  purified,  and  are  transfigured  into  some  unknown 
heroic  appearance.  Everywhere  he  stamps  them  with  the  direct- 
ness of  his  character,  the  warmth  of  his  blood,  the  admirable  equi- 
librium of  his  nerves,  and  the  magnificence  of  his  ordinary  visions. 
He  is  unequal,  and  oversteps  moderation  ;  he  lacks  taste  when  he 
draws,  but  never  when  he  colors.  He  is  forgetful,  even  careless ; 
but  from  the  first  day  to  the  last,  he  atones  for  a  fault  by  a  master- 
piece ;  he  redeems  a  want  of  care,  of  seriousness,  or  of  taste  by  the 
instantaneous  testimony  of  self-respect,  an  almost  touching  applica- 
tion, and  supreme  taste. 

His  grace  is  that  of  a  man  who  sees  grandly  and  powerfully,  and 
the  smile  of  such  a  man  is  delicious.  When  he  puts  his  hand  upon 
a  very  rare  subject,  when  he  touches  a  deep  and  manifest  sentiment, 
when  his  heart  beats  with  a  lofty  and  sincere  emotion,  he  paints 
the  Communion  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  and  then,  in  the  rank  of 
purely  moral  conceptions,  he  attains  the  utmost  beauty  in  truth, 
and  in  that  is  as  great  as  any  one  in  the  world. 

He  does  not  look  back,  nor  does  he  fear  what  is  to  be  done.  He 
accepts  overwhelming  tasks,  and  accomplishes  them.  He  suspends 
his  labor,  abandons  it,  lets  his  mind  wander  from  it,  turns  aside  from 
it  altogether.  He  returns  to  it,  after  a  long  and  distant  embassy, 
as  if  he  had  not  left  it  for  an  hour.  One  day  is  sufficient  for  him 
to  paint  The  Kermis,  —  thirteen  for  the  Magi  of  Antwerp,  perhaps 
seven  or  eight  for  the  Communion,  judging  from  the  price  which 
was  paid  him  for  them. 


106       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

Did  he  love  money  as  much  as  was  said?  Did  he,  as  has  also 
been  said,  commit  the  wrong  of  being  helped  by  his  pupils,  and 
did  he  treat  with  too  much  disdain  an  art  to  which  he  has  done 
such  great  honor,  because  he  estimated  his  pictures  at  the  rate  of 
a  hundred  florins  a  day?  The  truth  is,  that  at  that  time  the 
craft  of  a  painter  was  indeed  a  craft,  nor  was  it  less  nobly  nor 
less  well  practised  because  it  was  treated  almost  like  a  high  pro- 
fession. The  truth  is,  there  were  apprentices,  masters,  corporations, 
and  a  school  which  was  very  decidedly  a  studio,  and  the  pupils 
were  co-laborers  with  the  master,  while  neither  scholars  nor  master 
had  any  reason  to  complain  of  this  salutary  and  useful  exchange 
of  lessons  and  services. 

More  than  any  one  Rubens  had  the  right  to  hold  to  the  ancient 
usages.  With  Rembrandt  he  is  the  last  great  head  of  a  school, 
and,  better  than  Rembrandt,  whose  genius  is  untransmissible,  he 
has  determined  new,  numerous,  and  fixed  laws  of  aesthetics.  He 
leaves  a  double  inheritance  of  good  teaching  and  superb  examples. 
His  studio  recalls,  with  as  much  renown  as  any,  the  finest  habits 
of  the  Italian  schools.  He  formed  disciples  who  are  the  envy  of 
other  schools,  the  glory  of  his  own.  He  can  always  be  seen  sur- 
rounded by  this  bevy  of  original  minds  and  great  talents,  over 
whom  he  exercises  a  sort  of  paternal  authority  full  of  gentleness, 
solicitude,  and  majesty. 

He  had  no  wearisome  old  age,  nor  heavy  infirmity,  nor  decrepi- 
tude. The  last  picture  that  he  signed,  and  which  he  never  had 
time  to  deliver,  his  Crucifixion  of  St  Peter,  is  one  of  his  very  best. 


THE   TOMB   OF  RUBENS.  107 

He  speaks  of  it  in  a  letter  in  1638,  as  of  a  work  of  predilection 
which  charms  him,  and  which  he  desires  to  treat  at  leisure.  Hardly 
had  he  been  warned,  by  some  little  suffering,  that  our  forces  have 
limits,  than  he  suddenly  died  at  the  age  of  sixty-three,  leaving  to  his 
son,  with  a  very  wealthy  patrimony,  the  most  solid  inheritance  of 
glory  that  ever  a  thinker,  at  least  in  Flanders,  had  acquired  by  the 
labor  of  his  mind. 

Such  is  this  exemplary  life  that  I  would  wish  to  see  written  by 
some  man  of  great  learning  and  deep  heart  for  the  honor  of  our 
art,  and  the  perpetual  edification  of  those  who  practise  it.  It  is 
here  that  it  should  be  written,  if  possible,  if  it  could  be  done,  with 
one's  feet  upon  his  tomb,  and  before  the  St.  George.  Having  before 
his  eyes  that  part  of  us  which  passes  away  and  that  which  en- 
dures, that  which  perishes  and  that  which  abides,  a  man  might 
weigh  with  more  moderation,  certainty,  and  respect  what  there  is 
in  the  life  of  a  great  man  and  in  his  works  that  is  ephemeral,  perish- 
able, and  truly  immortal ! 

Who  knows,  too,  but  that  if  the  work  were  meditated  upon  in 
the  chapel  where  Rubens  sleeps,  this  miracle  of  genius,  taken  in 
himself,  might  not  become  a  little  more  clear,  and  this  super- 
natural being,  as  we  call  him,  be  better  explained  ? 


IX. 


VANDYCK. 

IT  is  thus  I  should  imagine  a  portrait  of  Vandyck,  made  as  it 
were  by  a  rapid  sketch  with  a  broad  pencil :  — 

A  young  prince  of  royal  race,  with  everything  in  his  favor,  —  beauty, 
elegance,  magnificent  gifts,  precocious  genius,  a  rare  education,  —  and 
owing  all  these  things  to  the  advantages  of  birth  ;  cherished  by  his 
master,  himself  a  master  among  his  fellow-students,  everywhere 
distinguished,  everywhere  sought  for,  feted  everywhere,  in  foreign 
parts  even  more  than  at  home  ;  the  favorite  and  friend  of  kings, 
entering  thus  by  right  into  the  most  enviable  things  of  the  world, 
such  as  talent,  renown,  honors,  luxury,  passions,  and  adventures  ; 
ever  young  even  at  a  ripe  age,  never  steady  even  in  his  last  days, 
a  libertine,  a  gamester,  eager,  prodigal,  dissipated,  playing  the  devil, 
and,  as  they  would  have  said  in  his  time,  selling  himself  to  the  devil 
for  golden  guineas,  then  spending  them  wildly  on  horses,  in  display, 
on  ruinous  gallantries ;  as  much  as  possible  a  lover  of  his  art,  but 
ready  to  sacrifice  it  to  passions  less  noble,  to  loves  less  faithful, 
to  attachments  far  less  fortunate  ;  charming,  of  powerful  origin,  of 
elegant  stature,  such  as  one  sees  in  the  second  generation  of  great 


VANDYCK.  109 

races,  of  a  complexion  less  virile  than  delicate,  the  air  of  a  Don 
Juan  rather  than  of  a  hero,  with  a  flavor  of  melancholy  and  an 
undercurrent  of  sadness  penetrating  through  the  gayeties  of  his  life  ; 
the  tenderness  of  a  heart  prompt  to  fall  in  love,  and  that  indefina- 
ble disillusionment  of  a  heart  too  often  moved  ;  a  nature  more  in- 
flammable than  burning,  with,  at  bottom,  more  sensuality  than  true 
ardor,  less  fire  than  freedom,  less  capable  of  seizing  things  than 
of  being  seized  by  them  and  abandoning  himself  to  them  ;  a  being 
exquisite  in  attraction,  sensitive  to  all  attraction,  consumed  by  the 
two  most  absorbing  things  in  the  world,  the  muse  and  women  ;  a 
man  who  abused  everything,  his  seductions,  his  health,  his  dignity, 
his  talent ;  crushed  by  necessities,  worn  out  with  pleasure,  ex- 
hausted in  resources ;  an  insatiable  being,  who  ended,  says  the 
legend,  by  keeping  low  company  with  Italian  knaves,  and  by  seek- 
ing gold  secretly  in  alembics  ;  a  seeker  of  adventures,  who  at  the 
end  of  his  career  married  to  order,  as  it  were,  a  charming,  well-born 
maiden,  when  he  could  no  longer  give  her  either  strength,  or  much 
money,  or  great  charm,  or  a  secure  life  ;  a  wreck  of  a  man  who, 
up  to  his  last  hour,  had  the  good  fortune,  the  most  extraordinary 
of  all,  to  preserve  his  greatness  when  painting ;  in  fine,  a  mauvais 
sujet,  adored,  decried,  calumniated  at  length,  better  in  reality  than 
his  reputation  ;  a  man  who  was  forgiven  for  everything  on  account 
of  one  supreme  gift,  one  of  the  forms  of  genius, — grace;  —  to  sura 
up  all,  a  Prince  of  Wales  dying  upon  his  accession  to  the  throne, 
who  was  by  no  means  fitted  to  reign. 

With  his  important  work,  his  immortal  portraits,  his   soul   open 


1 10       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLI.AND. 

to  the  most  delicate  sensations,  his  individual  style,  his  personal  dis- 
tinction, his  taste,  his  restraint,  and  his  charm  in  everything  he 
touched,  one  may  ask  what  Vandyck  would  be  without  Rubens. 
.  How  would  he  have  seen  nature,  how  conceived  painting  ?  What 
sort  of  palette  would  he  have  created,  what  would  have  been  his 
modelling,  what  laws  of  color  would  he  have  fixed,  what  would  he 
have  adopted  that  was  poetic  ?  Would  he  have  been  more  Italian, 
or  would  he  have  bent  more  decidedly  towards  Correggio  or  towards 
Veronese  ?  If  the  revolution  made  by  Rubens  had  been  retarded 
for  a  few  years,  or  had  not  taken  place,  what  would  have  been 
the  fate  of  those  charming  spirits  for  whom  the  master  had  pre- 
pared the  way,  who  only  had  to  see  him  live  to  live  a  little  like 
him,  only  to  watch  him  paint  to  paint  as  none  had  ever  painted 
before  him,  and  only  to  consider  as  a  whole  his  works  such  as  he 
had  imagined  them,  and  the  society  of  their  time  such  as  it  had 
become,  to  perceive,  in  their  definite  relations  henceforth  bound  to 
each  other,  two  worlds  equally  new,  —  a  modern  society,  a  modern 
art  ?  Who  among  them  could  have  undertaken  such  discoveries  ? 
There  was  an  empire  to  found :  could  they  found  it  ?  Jordaens, 
Grayer,  G6rard,  Zeghers,  Rombouts,  Van  Thulden,  Cornelis  Schutt, 
Boyermanns,  Jan  van  Oost  of  Bruges,  Teniers,  Van  Uden,  Snyders, 
Johann  Fyt,  all  those  whom  Rubens  inspired,  enlightened,  formed, 
and  employed,  —  his  co-laborers,  his  pupils,  or  his  friends,  —  could  at 
the  utmost  divide  among  themselves  certain  provinces,  small  or  great ; 
and  Vandyck,  the  most  gifted  of  all,  deserved  the  finest  and  most 
important  among  them.  Deprive  them  of  that  which  they  owed 


VANDYCK.  Ill 

directly  or  indirectly  to  Rubens,  take  from  them  the  central  planet, 
and  imagine  what  would  remain  of  these  luminous  satellites.  Take 
from  Vandyck  the  original  type  from  which  his  issued,  the  style 
whence  he  drew  his  own,  the  feeling  for  form,  the  choice  of  subject, 
the  movement  of  mind,  the  manner  and  the  method  which  served  him 
for  example,  and  see  what  he  would  lack.  At  Antwerp,  at  Brussels, 
everywhere  in  Belgium,  Vandyck  follows  in  the  footsteps  of  Rubens. 
His  Silenus,  and  his  Martyrdom  of  St.  Peter,  are  like  a  delicate  and 
almost  poetical  Jordaens,  —  that  is  to  say,  Rubens  preserved  in  his 
nobility  by  a  more  curious  hand.  His  Sanctities,  Passions,  Cruci- 
fixions, Descents  from  the  Cross,  beautiful  dead  Christs,  fair  women 
in  mourning  and  tears,  would  not  exist,  or  would  be  different,  if 
Rubens,  once  for  all,  in  his  two  triptychs  at  Antwerp,  had  not  re- 
vealed the  Flemish  formula  of  the  Gospel,  and  determined  the  local 
type  of  the  Virgin,  the  Christ,  the  Magdalen,  and  the  disciples. 

There  is  always  more  sentimentality,  and  sometimes  even  more 
profound  sentiment,  in  the  fine  Vandyck  than  in  the  great  Rubens ; 
but  is  one  quite  certain  of  that  ?  It  is  a  matter  of  temperament 
and  complexion.  All  sons  like  Vandyck  have  a  feminine  trait 
added  to  the  father's  features.  It  is  by  this  that  the  paternal  type 
is  sometimes  made  more  beautiful ;  it  is  softened,  altered,  diminished. 
Between  these  two  souls,  elsewhere  so  unequal,  there  is  something 
like  this  influence  of  the  woman.  In  the  first  place  there  is  some- 
thing which  we  may  call  a  difference  of  sex.  Vandyck  heightens  the 
statures  that  Rubens  made  too  stout ;  he  indicates  less  muscle,  less 
relief,  fewer  bones,  and  not  so  much  blood.  He  is  less  turbulent,  never 


112      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

brutal ;  his  expressions  are  less  gross  ;  he  laughs  but  little,  has  often  a 
vein  of  tenderness,  but  he  knows  not  the  strong  sob  of  violent  men. 
He  never  startles ;  he  often  corrects  the  roughnesses  of  his  master  ; 
he  is  easy,  because  his  talent  is  prodigiously  natural  and  facile ;  he 
is  free  and  alert,  but  he  never  is  carried  away. 

Taking  work  for  work,  there  are  some  that  he  would  draw  better 
than  his  master,  especially  when  the  work  is  choice  ;  an  idle  hand, 
a  woman's  wrist,  a  slender  finger  circled  by  a  ring.  He  has  more 
restraint,  more  polish  ;  one  might  say  he  is  better  bred.  He  is  more 
refined  than  his  master,  because  in  fact  his  master  formed  himself 
alone,  and  the  sovereignty  of  rank  dispenses  with,  and  takes  the 
place  of  many  things. 

He  was  twenty-four  years  younger  than  Rubens.  Nothing  of  the 
sixteenth  century  remained  in  him.  He  belonged  to  the  first  gener- 
ation of  the  seventeenth,  and  that  makes  itself  felt.  It  is  felt  physi- 
cally and  morally,  in  the  man  and  in  the  painter,  in  his  own  hand- 
some face  and  in  his  taste  for  other  handsome  faces.  It  is  especially 
felt  in  his  portraits.  On  this  ground  he  belongs  wonderfully  to  the 
world,  —  the  world  of  his  day  and  hour. 

Never  having  created  an  imperious  type  to  distract  him  from  the 
real,  he  is  true,  he  is  exact,  he  sees  correctly,  he  sees  the  likeness. 
Possibly  he  gives  to  all  the  personages  who  sat  for  him  something  of 
the  graces  of  his  own  person,  — an  air  more  habitually  noble,  a  more 
elegant  undress,  a  finer  attraction  and  style  in  garments,  hands 
more  regularly  handsome,  pure,  and  white.  In  every  case  he  has, 
more  than  his  master,  a  feeling  for  draperies  well  put  on,  for  fashion  ; 


VANDYCK.  113 

he  has  a  taste  for  silky  stuffs,  for  satins,  for  ribbons,  for  points,  for 
plumes  and  ornamental  swords. 

These  gentlemen  are  no  longer  cavaliers,  they  are  chevaliers. 
The  men  of  war  have  laid  aside  their  armor  and  their  casques  ; 
they  have  become  courtiers  and  men  of  the  world  in  loose  doublets 
and  flowing  linen,  in  silk  hose  and  loose  breeches  and  high-heeled 
satin  shoes,  —  all  fashions  and  habits  which  were  his  own,  and  which 
he  was  fitted  better  than  any  one  to  reproduce  in  their  perfect 
mundane  ideal. 

In  his  manner,  his  style,  by  the  unique  conformity  of  his  nature 
with  the  spirit,  the  needs,  and  the  elegances  of  his  epoch,  he  is,  in 
the  art  of  painting  his  contemporaries,  the  equal  of  anybody.  His 
Charles  I.,  from  its  profound  feeling  for  model  and  subject,  the 
familiarity  and  nobility  of  its  style,  the  beauty  of  everything  in  this 
exquisite  work,  the  drawing  of  the  face,  the  coloring,  the  unrivalled 
rarity  and  justness  of  the  values,  the  quality  of  the  handling,  —  the 
Charles  I.,  I  say,  to  choose  from  his  work  an  example  well  known  in 
France,  will  bear  comparison  with  the  greatest. 

His  triple  portrait  at  Turin  is  of  the  same  order  and  of  the  same 
significance.  Under  this  head  he  has  done  better  than  any  one 
since  Rubens.  He  has  completed  Rubens  by  adding  to  his  work 
portraits  wholly  worthy  of  him,  better  than  his.  He  has  created  in 
his  country  an  original  art,  and  consequently  has  his  part  in  the 
creation  of  a  new  art. 

Elsewhere  he  has  done  still  more ;  he  has  engendered  a  whole 
foreign  school,  the  English  school.  Reynolds,  Lawrence,  Gains- 


114      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

borough,  I  might  add  almost  all  the  genre  painters  faithful  to  the 
English  traditions,  and  the  best  landscape  painters,  are  the  direct 
issue  of  Vandyck,  and  indirectly  of  Rubens  through  Vandyck.  These 
are  worthy  titles.  Thus  posterity,  ever  very  just  in  its  instincts, 
makes  for  Vandyck  a  place  of  his  own  between  men  of  the  first 
order  and  men  of  the  second.  The  order  of  precedence  which  should 
be  accorded  to  him  in  the  procession  of  great  men  has  never  been 
accurately  determined  ;  and  since  his  death,  as  during  his  life,  he 
seems  to  have  preserved  the  privilege  of  being  placed  near  the 
throne,  and  there  being  a  distinguished  presence. 

However,  I  return  to  my  statement  that,  in  spite  of  his  personal 
genius,  his  personal  grace,  his  personal  talent,  Vandyck  as  a  whole 
would  be  inexplicable  if  we  had  not  before  our  eyes  the  solar  light 
from  which  issue  so  many  brilliant  reflections.  One  would  seek  to 
know  who  had  taught  him  these  new  manners,  this  liberal  language 
which  bears  no  trace  of  the  ancient  tongue  ;  one  would  detect  in 
him  gleams  from  elsewhere,  which  did  not  issue  from  his  own  genius  ; 
and  finally  one  would  suspect  that  somewhere  in  his  neighborhood 
some  mighty  planet  must  have  disappeared. 

No  longer  would  Vandyck  be  called  the  son  of  Rubens,  but  to 
his  name  would  be  added,  His  master  is  unknown,  and  the  mystery 
of  his  birth  would  well  deserve  to  occupy  the  attention  of  histori- 
ographers. 


PART    II. 


HOLLAND. 


HOLLAND. 
I. 

THE  HAGUE  AND   SCHEVENINGEN. 

THE  Hague  is  unquestionably  one  of  the  least  Dutch  towns  there 
is  in  Holland,  and  one  of  the  most  singular  towns  in  all  Europe. 

It  has  just  the  degree  of  local  eccentricity  necessary  to  give  it  that 
individual  charm  and  mat  shade  of  cosmopolitan  elegance  which  adapt 
it  especially  for  a  place  of  meeting.  There  is  a  little  of  everything, 
too,  in  this  city  of  composite  manners,  and  yet  of  very  individual 
physiognomy,  whose  space,  cleanness,  stylish  picturesqueness,  and 
rather  haughty  grace  seem  to  be  a  perfectly  polite  manner  of  show- 
ing hospitality.  Here  is  met  an  indigenous  aristocracy  which  travels, 
a  foreign  aristocracy  which  enjoys  the  place,  imposing  fortunes  made 
in  the  depths  of  Asiatic  colonies  that  establish  themselves  here  in 
great  comfort,  finally  envoys  extraordinary  on  occasion,  perhaps  oftener 
than  is  necessary  for  the  peace  of  the  world.  It  is  an  abode  that 
I  would  recommend  to  those  whom  the  ugliness,  the  platitude,  the 
confusion,  the  meanness,  or  the  vain  luxury  of  things,  have  disgusted 
with  great  cities  but  not  with  towns.  And  as  for  me,  if  I  had  to 


Il8       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

choose  a  place  for  work,  a  pleasant  spot  where  I  could  be  comfortable, 
breathe  a  delicate  atmosphere,  see  beautiful  things  and  dream  of 
more  beautiful  ones,  especially  if  I  were  disturbed  by  cares,  con- 
tentions, or  difficulties  with  myself,  and  I  needed  tranquillity  to 
solve  them,  and  something  very  agreeable  about  me  to  calm  them, 
I  would  do  as  Europe  does  after  its  storms  ;  I  would  here  establish 
my  Congress. 

The  Hague  is  a  capital,  as  can  plainly  be  seen,  even  a  royal  city  ; 
and  one  might  say  it  has  always  been  one.  It  only  lacks  a  palace 
worthy  of  its  rank  to  have  all  the  features  of  its  physiognomy  accord 
with  its  final  destiny.  One  feels  that  it  had  princes  for  stadtholders, 
and  that  these  princes  were  in  their  way  De  Medicis,  that  they  had 
a  taste  for  the  throne,  and  ought  to  have  reigned  somewhere,  and 
that  it  only  depended  upon  them  to  have  their  kingdom  here.  The 
Hague  is  then  a  city  royally  distinguished ;  it  is  so  by  right,  for  it 
is  very  wealthy,  and  by  duty,  for  fine  manners  and  opulence  are 
all  one  when  everything  is  as  it  should  be.  It  might  be  dull,  but 
it  is  only  regular,  correct,  and  peaceable.  It  might  be  arrogant, 
but  it  is  only  ostentatious  and  grand-mannered.  It  is  clean,  as  would 
be  expected,  but  not,  as  one  would  suppose,  solely  because  it  has  well- 
kept  streets  paved  with  brick,  painted  houses,  unbroken  glasses,  var- 
nished doors,  shining  coppers  ;  but  because  its  waters,  perfectly  green 
and  beautiful,  green  with  the  reflections  of  their  banks,  are  never 
soiled  by  the  muddy  wake  of  the  canal  boats  and  the  open-air  cook- 
ing of  the  sailors. 

The  Wood  is  admirable.    The  Hague,  born  of  a  prince's  caprice, 


THE  HAGUE  AND  SCHEVENINGEN.  119 

formerly  a  hunting-seat  of  the  counts  of  Holland,  has  for  trees  a 
secular  passion,  which  comes  from  the  natal  forest  which  was  its 
cradle.  It  promenades  there,  gives  festivities  and  concerts,  has  races 
and  military  reviews  ;  and  when  its  fine  forest  is  no  longer  of  any 
use,  it  has  constantly  under  its  eyes  this  green,  dark,  compact  curtain 
of  oaks,  beeches,  ashes,  and  maples,  that  the  perpetual  moisture  of 
its  ponds  seems  every  morning  to  paint  with  a  newer  and  more  in- 
tense green. 

Its  great  domestic  luxury  —  the  sole  which  it  ostensibly  parades 
with  the  beauty  of  its  waters  and  the  splendor  of  its  parks,  that 
with  which  it  decorates  its  gardens,  its  winter  and  summer  drawing- 
rooms,  its  bamboo  verandas,  its  doorsteps,  and  its  balconies  —  is 
its  unrivalled  abundance  of  rare  plants  and  flowers.  These  flowers 
come  from  everywhere,  and  go  everywhere.  Here  India  is  accli- 
mated before  it  goes  to  make  Europe  blossom.  The  Hague,  as  an 
heritage  of  the  Nassau  family,  has  preserved  a  taste  for  the  country, 
for  drives  under  the  trees,  for  menageries,  sheepfolds,  fine  animals 
at  large  upon  lawns.  By  its  architectural  style  it  is  connected  with 
the  seventeenth  century  in  France.  Its  fancies,  some  of  its  habits, 
its  exotic  adornments,  and  its  odor  come  from  Asia.  Its  actual  com- 
fort passed  to  England  and  came  back  again,  so  that  at  the  present 
time  it  is  impossible  to  say  whether  the  original  type  is  at  London 
or  at  the  Hague.  In  short,  it  is  a  town  worth  seeing,  for  it  has  much 
without ;  but  what  is  within  is  worth  more  than  what  is  without,  for  it 
contains  besides  a  great  deal  of  art  concealed  under  its  elegances. 

To-day  I   was  driven   to   Scheveningen.      The   road  is    a  long, 


120      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

narrow  shaded  avenue,  leading  in  a  straight  line  through  the  heart 
of  the  woods.  It  is  cool  and  dark,  whatever  may  be  the  warmth  of 
the  sky  and  the  blue  of  the  atmosphere.  The  sun  leaves  you  at  the 
beginning  and  meets  you  at  the  end.  The  exit  is  upon  the  rear  of 
the  downs,  —  a  vast  wavy  desert,  sparsely  sown  with  thin  grass  and 
sand,  such  as  are  found  at  the  edge  of  great  beaches.  Traversing 
the  village,  you  find  casinos,  bath  palaces,  and  princely  pavilions, 
adorned  with  the  colors  and  arms  of  Holland.  You  climb  the 
downs,  and  heavily  descend  them  to  reach  the  shore.  Before  you, 
flat,  gray,  wind-blown,  and  white-capped,  lies  the  North  Sea.  Who 
has  not  been  there  ?  and  who  has  not  seen  it  ?  One  thinks  of 
Ruysdael,  Van  Goyen,  and  of  Van  de  Velde.  Their  point  of  view 
is  easily  found.  I  could  tell  you,  as  if  their  trace  had  been  im- 
printed there  for  two  centuries,  the  exact  spot  where  they  sat ;  the 
sea  is  on  the  right ;  the  terraced  downs  grow  dark  upon  the  left, 
taper,  grow  small,  and  softly  melt  into  the  pallid  horizon.  The 
grass  is  dry,  the  downs  are  pale,  the  beach  colorless,  the  sea  milky, 
the  sky  silky,  cloudy,  wonderfully  aerial,  well  drawn,  well  modelled, 
and  well  painted,  as  they  used  to  paint  it  in  old  times. 

Even  at  high  tide  the  beach  is  interminable.  As  formerly,  the 
promenaders  make  upon  it  spots  that  are  soft  or  vivid  and  some- 
times piercing.  The  darks  are  solid  ;  the  lights,  tasteful,  simple,  and 
soft.  The  daylight  is  excessive,  and  the  picture  is  in  low  tone  ; 
nothing  can  be  more  variegated,  and  the  whole  effect  is  dreary. 
Red  is  the  only  vivid  color  that  preserves  its  activity  in  this  as- 
tonishingly subdued  scale,  of  which  the  notes  are  so  rich,  while  the 


THE  HAGUE  AND  SCHEVEN1NGEN.  121 

tone  remains  grave.  There  are  children  playing  and  stamping, 
wading,  making  holes  and  wells  in  the  sand ;  women  in  light 
costumes,  made  of  white  shaded  with  pale  blue  or  tender  pink, 
not  at  all  as  they  are  painted  nowadays,  but  much  more  as  they 
would  be  painted,  wisely  and  soberly,  if  Ruysdael  and  Van  de  Velde 
were  there  to  give  their  advice.  Dripping  boats  lie  near  the  shore, 
with  their  delicate  rigging,  their  black  masts,  their  massive  hulls, 
recalling  feature  for  feature  the  ancient  sketches  colored  with  bistre 
of  the  best  marine  draughtsmen  ;  and  when  a  rolling  car  passes  by, 
we  think  of  the  Chariot  with  Six  Dapple-Gray  Horses  of  the  Prince 
of  Orange.  If  you  remember  certain  simple  pictures  of  the  Dutch 
School,  you  know  Scheveningen,  —  it  is  now  what  it  was  then. 
Modern  life  has  changed  its  accessories  ;  each  era  renews  the  per- 
sonages, and  introduces  its  fashions  and  habits,  —  but  what  of  that  ? 
It  is  hardly  a  special  accent  in  an  outline.  Whether  burghers  of  the 
olden  time  or  tourists  of  to-day,  they  are  only  little  picturesque 
spots,  moving  and  changing,  ephemeral  points  succeeding  each 
other  from  age  to  age,  between  the  great  heaven,  the  great  sea, 
the  immense  downs,  and  the  ashy-white  beach. 

However,  as  if  better  to  prove  the  permanence  of  things  in  this 
grand  scenic  picture,  the  same  wave,  studied  so  many  times,  was 
beating  with  regularity  the  shore  imperceptibly  sloping  towards  it. 
It  gathered,  rolled  and  broke,  continuing  that  intermittent  sound 
that  has  not  varied  a  note  since  this  world  was  a  world.  The  sea 
was  empty.  A  storm  was  forming  in  the  offing  and  circled  the 
horizon  with  banks  of  clouds  gray  and  fixed.  In  the  evening  there 


THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

would  be  lightning  from  them  ;  and  on  the  morrow,  if  they  were  only 
alive,  William  van  de  Velde,  Ruysdael,  who  did  not  fear  the  wind, 
and  Bakhuysen,  who  expressed  nothing  well  but  the  wind,  might 
come  to  watch  the  downs  at  their  moment  of  melancholy,  and  the 
North  Sea  in  its  wrath. 

I  came  home  by  another  route,  along  the  new  canal  to  the  Prin- 
cessen-gracht.  There  had  been  races  in  the  Maliebaan.*  The  crowd 
was  still  standing  in  the  shelter  of  the  trees,  massed  against  the 
sombre  background  of  foliage,  as  if  the  perfect  turf  of  the  hippodrome 
were  a  carpet  of  rare  quality  that  must  not  be  trampled  upon. 

A  little  smaller  crowd,  a  few  black  landaus  under  the  forest  shade, 
and  I  could  describe  to  you,  because  I  have  just  had  it  under  my 
eyes,  one  of  those  pretty  pictures  by  Paul  Potter,  so  patiently  worked 
with  the  needle,  so  ingeniously  bathed  with  light  green  half-tints, 
such  as  he  painted  in  the  days  when  he  was  only  half  working. 

*  The  mall,  —  an  open  field  in  the  Wood,  where  reviews  are  held. 


II. 

ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER   OF  THE  DUTCH  SCHOOL. 

THE  Dutch  School  begins  with  the  first  years  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  By  taking  a  slight  liberty  with  dates,  the  very  day  of  its 
birth  might  be  fixed. 

It  is  the  last  of  the  great  schools,  perhaps  the  most  original,  cer- 
tainly the  most  local.  At  the  same  hour,  under  the  same  circum- 
stances, are  seen  to  appear  in  conjunction  two  events,  —  a  new  state 
and  a  new  art.  The  origin  of  Dutch  art  has  often  been  narrated 
pertinently  and  admirably,  with  its  character,  purpose,  methods, 
appropriateness,  its  rapid  growth,  its  unprecedented  physiognomy, 
and  particularly  the  sudden  manner  in  which  it  was  born,  on  the 
morrow  of  an  armistice,  with  the  nation  itself,  like  the  quick  and 
natural  blossoming  of  a  people  glad  to  live,  and  in  haste  to  under- 
stand itself.  I  will  touch  upon  the  historical  part  only  as  a  reminder, 
so  as  to  come  more  quickly  to  what  is  of  import  to  my  subject. 

Holland  had  never  possessed  many  national  painters,  and  possibly 
to  this  destitution  she  owes  the  fact  of  counting  so  many  in  later 
days  that  belonged  entirely  to  herself.  While  she  was  confounded 
with  Flanders,  it  was  Flanders  that  undertook  to  think,  invent,  and 


124       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

paint  for  her.  She  had  neither  her  Van  Eyck  nor  her  Memling, 
nor  even  a  Roger  van  der  Weiden.  She  had  a  momentary  gleam 
from  the  school  of  Bruges.  She  can  congratulate  herself  upon 
having  seen  the  birth,  about  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
of  a  native  genius,  in  the  painter  engraver,  Lucas  van  Leyden  ;  but 
Lucas  van  Leyden  formed  no  school,  that  flash  of  Dutch  life  died 
with  him.  Just  as  Stuerbout  (Bouts  van  Harlem)  disappeared 
almost,  in  the  style  and  manner  of  the  primitive  Flemish  school, 
so  Mostaert,  Schoreel,  Hemskerk,  in  spite  of  all  their  worth,  are  not 
individual  talents  which  illustrate  and  characterize  a  country. 

Moreover,  the  Italian  influence  had  reached  all  who  held  a  brush, 
from  Antwerp  to  Haarlem,  and  this  reason  was  added  to  others  to 
efface  boundaries,  mingle  schools,  and  denationalize  painters.  Jan 
Schoreel  did  not  even  leave  living  pupils.  The  last  and  most  illus- 
trious of  them,  the  greatest  portrait  painter  of  whom  Holland 
can  boast  next  to  Rembrandt,  and  by  the  side  of  Rembrandt,  that 
cosmopolitan  of  such  supple  nature,  of  such  virile  organization,  of 
such  a  fine  education,  and  so  changeable  a  style,  but  of  such  great 
talent,  who  preserved  no  trace  of  its  origin  even  in  his  name, 
Antonio  Moro,  Hispaniarum  regis  pictor>  as  he  was  called,  had 
died  in  1588.  Those  who  lived  were  scarcely  any  longer  Dutchmen, 
nor  were  they  better  grouped,  nor  more  capable  of  renewing  the 
school.  They  were  the  engraver  Golzius  ;  Cornelis  van  Harlem,  in 
the  style  of  Michael  Angelo  ;  Bloemaert,  the  Correggian  ;  Mierevelt, 
a  good  characteristic  painter,  learned,  correct,  and  concise,  a  little 
cold,  but  savoring  of  his  time,  though  not  much  of  his  country, — 


ORIGIN  AND   CHARACTER  OF  THE  DUTCH  SCHOOL.       12$ 

the  only  one,  however,  who  was  not  an  Italian,  and  who  was,  take 
notice,  a  portrait  painter. 

It  was  the  destiny  of  Holland  to  love  what  is  like,  to  return  to  it 
from  time  to  time,  to  survive  and  save  itself  by  the  portrait. 

However,  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  approached,  and,  taking 
the  portrait  painters  as  a  foundation,  other  painters  were  born  or 
were  formed.  From  1560  to  1597  quite  a  number  of  these  new  births 
may  be  observed  ;  already  there  was  a  half-awakening.  Thanks 
to  many  dissimilarities,  and  consequently  to  many  aptitudes  in  dif- 
ferent directions,  the  attempts  were  designed  according  to  the  ten- 
dency, and  the  roads  to  be  pursued  multiplied  They  compelled 
themselves  to  try  all  things  and  all  scales ;  there  was  a  division 
between  the  light  manner  and  the  brown  manner ;  the  light  was 
defended  by  the  draughtsmen,  the  brown  inaugurated  by  the  color- 
ists  and  advised  by  the  Italian  Caravaggio.  They  entered  into  the 
picturesque,  they  undertook  to  regulate  chiaroscuro.  The  palette 
and  the  hand  became  emancipated.  Rembrandt  already  had  direct 
forerunners.  Genre  painting,  properly  so  called,  released  itself  from 
the  obligations  of  history ;  very  nearly  the  final  expression  of  mod- 
ern landscape  was  approached.  Finally,  a  style  almost  historical 
and  profoundly  national  was  created,  the  civic  picture,  and  it  was 
with  this  acquisition,  the  most  decided  of  all,  that  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury ended  and  the  seventeenth  began. 

In  that  order  of  great  canvases  with  numerous  portraits,  like  the 
doelen  or  regentenstukken?  to  follow  the  rigorous  appellation  of  these 

•  Corporation  or  Regents'  pictures.  —  T». 


126      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

particularly  Dutch  works,   other   things  may   be   found,   but   none 
better. 

Here,  as  we  see,  are  the  germs  of  a  school,  but  not  yet  a  school. 
Talent  is  not  wanting ;  it  abounds.  Among  these  painters  on  the  high 
road  to  acquire  and  decide,  were  learned  artists,  even  one  or  two 
great  painters.  Moreelze,  issue  of  Mierevelt,  Jan  Ravesteyn,  Last- 
man,  Pinas,  Frans  Hals,  an  incontestable  master,  Poelemburg,  Van 
Schotten,  Van  de  "V^enne,  Theodore  de  Keyser,  Honthorst,  the  elder 
Cuyp,  finally,  Esaias  van  de  Velde  and  Van  Goyen,  had  their  names 


on  the  birth  register  in  this  year  1597.  I  quote  their  names  without 
other  explanation.  You  will  easily  recognize  in  this  list  those  whom 
history  was  to  remember,  and  you  will  especially  distinguish  the 
attempts  they  individually  represent,  the  future  masters  whom  they 
foretell,  and  you  will  understand  what  Holland  still  lacked,  and  what 
it  was  indispensably  necessary  she  should  possess,  under  penalty 
of  letting  her  high  hopes  be  lost. 

The  moment  was  critical.  Here  there  was  no  assured  political 
existence,  and  as  a  result  everything  else  was  in  the  hands  of 
chance  ;  in  Flanders,  on  the  contrary,  was  the  same  awakening,  with 
a  certainty  of  life  that  Holland  was  far  from  having  acquired.  Flan- 
ders was  crammed  with  painters  ready  made  or  nearly  so.  At  this 
very  hour  she  was  about  to  found  another  school,  the  second  in  a  little 
more  than  a  century,  as  brilliant  as  the  first,  and  as  a  neighbor  quite 
otherwise  dangerous,  for  it  was  extraordinarily  novel  and  dominant. 
It  had  a  supportable,  better  inspired  government,  old  habits,  a  definite 
and  more  compact  organization,  traditions,  and  a  society.  To  the 


ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER  OF  THE  DUTCH  SCHOOL.       127 

impulses  received  from  above  were  added  the  needs  of  luxury,  and  con- 
sequently artistic  needs  more  exciting  than  ever.  In  a  word,  the  most 
energetic  stimulus  and  the  most  powerful  reasons  were  driving  Flan- 
ders into  becoming  for  the  second  time  a  great  centre  of  art.  It 
was  about  to  have  some  years  of  peace  ;  and  a  master  to  constitute 
the  school  was  found. 

In  this  very  year  1609,  which  was  to  decide  the  fate  of  Holland, 
Rubens  entered  upon  the  scene. 

Everything  depended  upon  a  political  or  military  accident.  Beaten 
and  submissive,  Holland  was  subject  in  every  sense.  Why  should 
there  be  two  distinct  arts  among  the  same  people  under  one  rule  ? 
Why  should  there  be  a  school  at  Amsterdam,  and  what  was  to 
be  its  role  in  a  country  vowed  henceforth  to  Italo-Flemish  inspi- 
ration ?  What  was  to  become  of  its  vocation,  so  spontaneous,  free, 
and  provincial,  so  little  fitted  for  a  state  art  ?  Admitting  that 
Rembrandt  would  have  persisted  in  a  style  very  difficult  to  practise 
away  from  its  own  home,  can  you  imagine  him  belonging  to  the  Ant- 
werp school;  which  had  not  ceased  to  reign  from  Brabant  to  Fries- 
land,  a  pupil  of  Rubens  painting  for  cathedrals,  decorating  palaces, 
and  pensioned  by  archdukes? 

In  order  that  the  Dutch  people  might  come  into  the  world,  and 
that  Dutch  art  might  be  born  on  the  same  day  with  it,  it  was  neces- 
sary —  and  this  is  why  their  two  histories  are  so  united  —  that  there 
should  be  a  revolution  that  should  be  profound  and  successful.  It 
was  necessary,  besides,  —  and*this  was  the  most  marked  claim  of  Hol- 
land to  the  favors  of  fortune, — that  this  revolution  should  have  for 


128       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

itself  right,  reason,  and  necessity,  and  that  the  people  should  deserve 
what  they  wished  to  obtain  ;  that  they  should  be  resolute,  convinced, 
laborious,  patient,  heroic,  wise,  and  without  useless  turbulence ;  and 
that  in  every  respect  they  should  show  that  they  were  worthy  to  own 
themselves. 

It  might  be  said  that  Providence  had  its  eye  upon  this  little  nation,  — 
that  it  examined  its  complaints,  weighed  its  claims,  became  persuaded 
of  its  force,  judged  that  all  was  according  to  its  design,  and  performed, 
when  the  day  came,  in  its  favor  a  unique  miracle.  War,  instead  of 
impoverishing  it,  enriched  it ;  struggles,  instead  of  enervating,  forti- 
fied, exalted,  and  tempered  it.  That  which  it  had  accomplished 
against  so  many  physical  obstacles,  —  the  sea,  the  inundated  land, 
the  climate,  —  it  did  against  the  enemy.  It  succeeded.  That  which 
ought  to  have  destroyed  it,  aided  it.  It  had  anxiety  on  but  one 
point,  the  certainty  of  its  existence,  and  it  signed,  thirty  years  apart, 
two  treaties  which  first  set  it  free  and  then  consolidated  it.  There  only 
remained,  to  confirm  its  own  existence  and  to  give  to  it  the  lustre  of 
other  prosperous  civilizations,  the  instantaneous  production  of  an  art 
which  consecrates  it,  honors  and  intimately  represents  it,  and  this 
was  found  to  be  the  result  of  the  twelve  years'  armistice.  This 
result  is  so  prompt,  so  decidedly  the  issue  of  the  political  incident  to 
which  it  corresponds,  that  the  right  of  having  a  free  and  national 
school  of  painting,  and  the  certainty  of  having  it  on  the  morrow  of 
the  peace,  seem  to  form  a  part  of  the  stipulations  of  the  treaty 
of  1609. 

At  that  very  moment  a  lull  is  felt.    A  breath  of  more  propitious 


ORIGIN  AND   CHARACTER  OF  THE  DUTCH  SCHOOL.        129 

temperature  has  passed  over  men's  minds,  revived  the  soil,  found 
germs  ready  to  burst,  and  made  them  sprout.  As  always  happens 
in  spring  at  the  North,  with  its  sudden  vegetation,  and  quick  ex- 
pansion after  the  mortal  cold  of  its  long  winter,  it  is  truly  an  un- 
looked  for  spectacle  to  see  appear,  in  so  little  time,  —  hardly  thirty 
years,  —  in  such  a  small  space,  upon  this  ungrateful  and  desert  soil, 
in  this  dreary  spot,  amid  the  rigor  of  all  things,  such  a  growth  of 
painters,  and  great  painters. 

They  were  born  everywhere  at  once,  —  at  Amsterdam,  at  Dordrecht, 
at  Leyden,  Delft,  Utrecht,  Rotterdam,  Enkhuysen,  Haarlem,  some- 
times even  beyond  the  frontiers,  like  a  seed  that  has  fallen  outside 
the  field.  Two  alone  preceded  the  hour, — Van  Goyen,  born  in  1596, 
and  Wynants  in  1600.  rCuyjD  came  in  1605.  The  year  1608,  one  of 
the  most  fruitful,  saw  the  birth  of  Terburg,  Brouwer,  and  Rembrandt, 
within  a  few  months.  Adrian  van  Ostade,  the  two  Boths,  and 
Ferdinand  Bol  were  born  in  1610 ;  Van  der  Heist  and  Gerhard 
Douw,  in  1613  ;  Metzu,  in  1615  ;  Aart  van  der  Neer,  from  1613  to 
1619;  Wouvermans,  in  1620;  Weenix,  Everdingen,  and  Pynaker,  in 
1621  ;  Berghem,  in  1624;  Paul  Potter  illustrates  the  year  1625  ;  Jan 
Steen,  the  year  1626  ;  and  the  year  1630  became  forever  memorable 
for  having  produced,  next  to  Claude  Lorraine,  the  greatest  landscape 
painter  in  the  world,  Jacob  Ruysdael. 

Is  the  stem  exhausted  ?  Not  yet.  Pieter  de  Hoogh!s  birth  is  un- 
certain, but  it  can  be  placed  between  1630  and  1635  ;  Hobbema  is 
a  contemporary  of  Ruysdael ;  Van  der  Heyden  was  born  in  1637  ; 
and,  finally,  Adrian  van  de  Velde,  the  last  of  all  the  great  ones, 

9 


130       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

was  born  in  1639.  The  verv  year  that  this  late  shoot  sprouted, 
Rembrandt  was  thirty  years  old ;  and,  taking  for  a  central  date  the 
year  in  which  appeared  his  Lesson  in  Anatomy,  1632,  you  can  state 
that  twenty-three  years  after  the  official  recognition  of  the  United 
Provinces,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  tardy  members,  the  Dutch 
School  attained  its  first  blossoming.  Taking  history  from  this  mo- 
ment, we  know  what  to  expect  from  the  aims,  character,  and  future 
destiny  of  the  school  ;  but  before  Van  Goyen  and  Wynants  had 
opened  the  way,  before  Terburg,  Metzu,  Cuyp,  Ostade,  and  Rem- 
brandt had  shown  what  they  meant  to  do,  it  might  well  be  asked 
what  painters  were  going  to  paint  at  such  a  time,  in  such  a  country. 

The  revolution  which  had  just  rendered  the  Dutch  people  free, 
rich,  and  prompt  for  all  undertakings,  had  despoiled  them  of  what 
elsewhere  formed  the  vital  element  of  the  great  schools.  It  changed 
beliefs,  suppressed  needs,  reduced  habits,  stripped  walls,  abolished 
the  representation  of  antique  fables  as  well  as  the  gospel ;  cut  short 
those  vast  enterprises  of  mind  and  hand,  —  church  pictures,  decorative 
pictures,  and  large  pictures.  Never  did  a  country  set  before  artists 
so  singular  an  alternative  by  constraining  them  expressly  to  be 
original,  under  penalty  of  not  existing. 

This  was  the  problem:  Given  a  .nation  of  burghers,  practical,  un- 
imaginative, busy,  not  in  the  least  mystical,  of  anti-Latin  mind,  with 
traditions  destroyed,  with  a  worship  without  images,  and  parsi- 
monious habits,  —  to  find  an  art  which  should  please  it,  that  should 
seize  its  conventionalities,  and  represent  it.  A  writer  of  our  time, 
very  enlightened  in  such  matters,  has  wittily  replied  that  such  a 


ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER  OF  THE  DUTCH  SCHOOL.       131 

people  had  but  one  thing  to  propose,  —  a  very  simple  and  very  bold 
thing,  and  moreover  the  only  one  in  which  their  artists  had  con- 
stantly succeeded  for  fifty  years,  and  that  was  to  require  that  they 
should  paint  its  portrait. 

This  phrase  says  everything.  Dutch  painting,  it  is  quickly  per- 
ceived, was  and  could  be  only  the  portrait  of  Holland,  its  exterior 
image,  faithful,  exact,  complete,  and  like,  with  no  embellishment. 
Portraits  of  men  and  places,  citizen  habits,  squares,  streets,  country 
places,  the  sea  and  sky,  —  such  was  to  be,  reduced  to  its  primitive 
elements,  the  programme  followed  by  the  Dutch  School,  and  such 
it  was  from  its  first  day  to  the  day  of  its  decline.  In  appearance 
nothing  can  be  more  simple  than  the  discovery  of  this  art  of  earthly 
aim  ;  but  until  they  tried  to  paint  it,  nothing  had  been  imagined 
equally  vast  and  more  novel. 

At  a  blow  everything  was  changed  in  the  manner  of  conceiving, 
seeing,  and  rendering,  —  point  of  view,  ideal,  poetry,  choice  of  subject, 
style,  and  method.  Italian  painting  in  its  finest  moments,  Flemish 
painting  in  its  noblest  efforts,  were  not  a  sealed  letter,  for  they  were 
still  enjoyed ;  but  they  were  a  dead  letter  because  they  were  to  be 
no  longer  consulted. 

There  existed  a  habit  of  high  thinking,  of  thinking  grandly,  an 
art  that  consisted  in  the  choice  of  things,  and  in  embellishing  and 
rectifying  them,  which  lived  in  the  absolute  rather  than  in  the  rela- 
tive, perceiving  nature  as  it  is,  but  preferring  to  exhibit  it  as  it  is 
not.  Everything  related  more  or  less  to  the  human  being,  depended 
upon  it,  was  subordinate  to  it,  or  imitated  from  it,  because,  in  fact, 


132       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

certain   laws  of  proportion    and   certain   attributes,  such   as  grace, 
force,  nobility,  and  beauty,  intelligently  studied  in  man  and  reduced 
into  a  body  of  doctrines,  could  be  applied  equally  to  what  was  not 
man.     Thence  resulted  a  sort  of  universal  humanity,  or  humanized 
universe,  of  which  the  human  body,  in  its  ideal  proportions,  was  the 
prototype.     In  history,  visions,  beliefs,  dogmas,  myths,  symbols,  and 
emblems,  the  human  form  almost  alone  expressed  everything  that 
could  be  expressed  by  itself.      Nature  existed  vaguely  around  this 
absorbing  being.     It  was  barely  considered  as  a  frame  which  would 
diminish  and  disappear  of  itself  when  man  should  take  his  place  in 
it.     Everything  was  elimination  and  synthesis.     As  it  was  necessary 
that  each  object  should  borrow  its  plastic  form  from  the  same  ideal, 
nothing  modified  it.     Then,  by  virtue  of  these  laws  of  the  historical 
style,  it  was  agreed  that  planes  should  be  reduced,  horizons  abridged  ; 
that  trees  should  be  expressed  broadly ;  that  the  sky  should  be  less 
changeable,  the  atmosphere  more  limpid  and  equable  ;  and  that  man 
should  be  more  like  himself,  oftener  naked  than  clothed,  more  habitu- 
ally of  lofty  stature  and  fair  countenance,  to  play  his  r61e  in  the  most 
sovereign  manner. 

Now  the  theme  had  become  more  simple.  It  was  necessary  to 
give  everything  its  own  interest,  to  restore  man  to  his  proper  place, 
and  at  need  to  dispense  with  him  altogether.  The  moment  had 
come  for  thinking  less,  for  aiming  less  high,  for  more  closely  examin- 
ing, for  observing  better,  and  for  painting  as  well,  but  differently.  It 
was  painting  for  the  crowd,  consisting  of  the  citizen,  the  working-man, 
the  upstart,  and  the  first  comer,  entirely  made  for  them  and  made 


ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER  OF  THE  DUTCH  SCHOOL.       133 

of  them.  It  was  necessary  to  become  humble  for  humble  things, 
little  for  little  things,  subtle  for  subtleties ;  to  welcome  all  without 
omission  or  disdain  ;  to  enter  into  their  intimacy  familiarly,  and 
affectionately  into  their  habits ;  it  was  to  be  a  matter  of  sympathy, 
of  attentive  curiosity,  and  patience.  Henceforth  genius  was  to  con- 
sist of  lack  of  prejudice,  of  not  knowing  what  one  knows,  of  letting 
the  model  be  a  surprise,  and  only  asking  him  how  he  wished  to  be 
represented.  As  to  embellishing,  never ;  ennobling,  never ;  cor- 
recting, never ;  —  they  would  but  be  so  many  lies  or  so  much  useless 
labor.  Was  there  not,  in  every  artist  worthy  of  the  name,  an  in- 
describable something  which  would  undertake  this  care  naturally 
and  without  effort  ? 

Even  within  the  boundaries  of  the  Seven  Provinces  the  field  of 
observation  is  unlimited.  A  corner  of  land  in  the  North,  with  its 
waters,  woods,  and  maritime  horizon,  may  be  called  an  abridgment 
of  the  universe.  In  its  relations  to  the  tastes  and  the  instincts  of 
the  observer,  the  smallest  country,  scrupulously  studied,  becomes  an 
inexhaustible  repertory,  as  crowded  as  life,  as  fertile  in  sensations  as 
the  heart  of  man  is  fertile  in  ways  of  feeling.  The  Dutch  School 
might  grow  and  work  for  a  hundred  years,  and  Holland  would  still 
have  enough  to  satisfy  the  indefatigable  curiosity  of  her  painters,  so 
long  as  their  love  for  her  was  unextinguished. 

There  is  enough  there,  without  going  out  of  the  pastures  and 
polders,  to  gratify  all  inclinations.  There  are  things  made  for  the 
delicate  as  well  as  the  coarse,  for  the  melancholy,  the  ardent,  for 
those  who  love  laughing  and  those  who  care  to  dream.  There  are 


134      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

dark  days  and  joyous  sunshine,  level  and  shining  seas,  and  black  and 
stormy  ones  ;  there  are  pastures  and  farms,  seacoasts  with  their  ships,  / 
and  almost  always  the  visible  movement  of  the  air  through  space, 
and  ever  the  great  winds  of  the  Zuyder  Zee,  piling  up  clouds,  bending 
trees,  driving  before  them  lights  and  shadows,  and  turning  windmills.^ 
Add  to  these  the  towns  and  their  exteriors,  existence  within  doors 
and  without,  the  fairs,  intemperance  and  debauchery,  good-breeding 
and  elegance ;  the  distresses  of  poverty,  the  horrors  of  winter,  the 
disarray  of  taverns  with  tobacco,  pots  of  beer,  and  laughing  waiting- 
maids,  trades  and  suspicious  places  on  every  floor,  —  on  one  side 
the  security  of  home,  the  benefits  of  labor,  abundance  in  fertile  fields, 
the  charm  of  living  out  of  doors,  with  business  affairs,  cavalcades, 
siestas,  and  hunts.  Add  to  these  public  life,  civic  ceremonies,  and 
civic  banquets,  and  you  will  have  the  elements  of  a  wholly  new  art 
with  subjects  as  old  as  the  world. 

Thence  comes  a  most  harmonious  unity  in  the  spirit  of  the  school, 
and  the  most  surprising  diversity  yet  produced  in  the  same  spirit. 

The  school  in  its  entirety  is  called  the  school  of  genre  painting. 
Dissect  it,  and  you  will  find  painters  of  conversations,  of  landscapes, 
animals,  marines,  official  pictures,  still  life,  flowers ;  and  in  each  cate- 
gory, almost  as  many  subgenera  as  temperaments,  from  the  pictu- 
resque to  the  ideal  painters,  from  the  copyists  to  the  arrangers,  from 
travellers  to  sedentaries,  from  the  humorists  who  are  amused  and 
captivated  by  the  human  comedy,  to  those  who  flee  from  it ;  from 
Brouwer  and  Van  Ostade  to  Ruysdael ;  from  the  impassive  Paul 
Potter  to  the  turbulent  and  riotous  Jan  Steen;  from  the  gay  and 


ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER  OF  THE  DUTCH  SCHOOL.        135 

witty  Van  de  Velde,  to  that  morose  and  mighty  dreamer,  who  with- 
out living  apart  had  no  relations  with  any  of  them,  repeated  none 
of  them,  but  was  the  summing  up  of  them  all ;  who  seemed  to  be 
painting  his  epoch,  his  country,  his  friends  and  himself,  but  who 
at  bottom  painted  only  one  of  the  unknown  recesses  of  the  human 
soul.  I  speak,  as  you  must  know,  of  Rembrandt. 

From  such  a  point  of  view,  such  a  style ;  and  from  such  a  style, 
such  a  method.  If  you  omit  Rembrandt,  who  is  an  exception  at 
home  as  elsewhere,  in  his  own  time  as  in  all  times,  you  perceive  but 
one  style  and  one  method  in  all  the  studios  in  Holland.  The  aim 
is  to  imitate  what  is,  to  make  what  is  imitated  charming,  to  clearly 
express  simple,  lively,  and  true  sensations.  Thus  the  style  has  the 
simplicity  and  clearness  of  the  principle.  It  has  for  law,  sincerity ; 
for  obligation,  truth.  Its  first  condition  is  to  be  familiar,  natural,  and 
characteristic,  whence  results  a  whole  of  moral  qualities,  innocent 
simplicity,  patient  will,  and  directness.  It  might  be  called  the  trans- 
portation of  domestic  virtues  from  private  life  into  the  practice  of 
art,  serving  equally  well  for  good  conduct  and  good  painting. 

Remove  from  Dutch  art  what  might  be  called  probity,  and  you 
would  no  longer  comprehend  its  vital  element ;  it  would  be  im- 
possible afterwards  to  define  either  its  morality  or  its  style.  But, 
even  as  in  the  most  practical  life  there  are  springs  of  action  which 
elevate  behavior,  thus  in  this  art,  reputed  so  positive,  among  these 
painters  considered  for  the  most  part  as  near-sighted  copyists,  you 
feel  a  loftiness  and  goodness  of  soul,  a  tenderness  for  the  true,  a 
cordiality  for  the  real,  which  give  to  their  works  a  value  that  the 


136      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

things  themselves  do  not  seem  to  have.  Hence  their  ideality,  an 
ideal  a  little  misunderstood,  rather  despised,  but  indisputable  for  him 
who  can  seize  it,  and  very  attractive  to  him  who  knows  how  to  relish 
it  At  times  a  grain  of  warmer  sensibility  makes  of  them  thinkers, 
even  poets,  on  occasion,  and  I  will  tell  you  in  what  rank  in  our 
history  of  art  I  place  the  style  and  inspiration  of  Ruysdael. 

The  basis  of  this  sincere  style  and  the  first  effect  of  this  probity 
is  the  drawing,  the  perfect  drawing.  Every  Dutch  painter  who  does 
not  draw  faultlessly  is  to  be  despised.  There  are  some,  like  Paul 
Potter,  whose  genius  consists  in  taking  measures,  in  following  a 
feature.  Elsewhere,  and  in  his  own  manner,  Holbein  did  nothing 
else,  which  constitutes  for  him,  within  and  outside  of  all  the  schools, 
an  almost  unique  glory,  entirely  his  own.  Every  object,  thanks  to 
the  interest  it  offers,  must  be  examined  in  its  form,  and  drawn  before 
it  is  painted.  Nothing  is  secondary  in  this  connection.  A  bit  of 
ground  with  its  vanishing  points,  a  cloud  with  its  movement,  archi- 
tecture with  its  laws  of  perspective,  a  face  with  its  expression,  dis- 
tinctive features,  passing  changes,  a  hand  with  its  gesture,  a  garment 
with  its  habitual  look,  an  animal,  with  its  bearing,  its  frame,  the 
intimate  character  of  its  race  and  instincts,  —  all  these,  with  equal 
rights,  form  a  part  of  this  levelling  art,  and  play,  so  to  speak,  the 
same  part  in  the  design. 

For  ages  it  was  believed,  and  it  is  still  believed  in  many  schools, 
that  it  is  sufficient  to  extend  aerial  tints,  to  shade  them  sometimes 
with  azure  and  sometimes  with  gray,  to  express  the  grandeur  of 
spaces,  the  height  of  the  zenith,  and  the  ordinary  changes  of  the 


ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER  OF  THE  DUTCH  SCHOOL.       137 

atmosphere.  Now,  consider  that  in  Holland  the  sky  is  often  half, 
and  sometimes  the  whole  picture,  and  that  here  the  interest  must 
be  divided  or  misplaced.  The  sky  must  move  and  transport  us,  lift 
and  excite  us ;  the  sun  must  set,  the  moon  must  rise ;  it  must  be 
actually  day,  or  evening,  or  night ;  it  must  be  warm  or  cold  ;  one  must 
shiver,  or  rejoice,  or  meditate  in  it.  If  the  drawing  applied  to  such 
problems  be  not  the  noblest  of  all,  at  least  we  can  easily  be  con- 
vinced that  it  is  neither  without  depth  nor  without  merit. 

And  if  the  science  and  the  genius  of  Ruysdael  and  Van  de  Veer 
were  doubted,  the  whole  world  might  be  searched  in  vain  for  a 
painter  who  could  paint  a  sky  as  they  did,  or  express  so  many  things, 
and  express  them  so  well.  Everywhere  we  find  the  same  drawing, 
strict,  concise,  precise,  natural,  and  simple,  seemingly  the  fruit  of 
daily  observation,  which,  as  I  have  made  you  understand,  is  skilled 
labor,  not  known  to  all  the  world. 

The  particular  charm  of  this  ingenuous  knowledge,  of  this  experi- 
ence without  self-conscious  airs,  the  ordinary  merit  and  the  true 
style  of  these  kindly  souls,  may  be  summed  up  in  a  word.  More 
or  less  skilful  they  may  be,  but  there  is  not  one  pedant  among 
them. 

As  to  their  palette,  it  is  as  good  as  their  drawing  ;  it  is  worth 
neither  more  nor  less,  whence  results  the  perfect  unity  of  their 
method.  All  the  Dutch  painters  paint  in  the  same  way,  and  no- 
body has  painted  or  can  paint  as  they  did.  If  you  examine  closely 
a  Teniers,  a  Breughel,  or  a  Paul  Bril,  it  can  be  seen,  in  spite  of  a 
certain  analogy  of  character  and  aim  which  are  nearly  similar,  that 


138       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

neither  Paul  Bril,  nor  Breughel,  nor  even  Teniers,  the  most  Dutch 
of  all  the  Flemings,  had  the  Dutch  education. 

It  is  a  painting  made  with  application,  with  order,  which  denotes 
a  well-poised  hand,  and  labor  executed  while  sitting,  which  presup- 
poses perfect  composure,  and  inspires  it  in  those  who  study  it.  The 
mind  meditated  to  conceive  it ;  the  mind  meditates  to  comprehend 
it.  There  is  a  certain  action,  easy  to  follow,  of  exterior  objects  upon 
the  painter's  eye,  and  through  it  upon  his  brain.  No  painting  gives 
a  clearer  idea  of  the  triple  and  silent  operation  of  feeling,  reflecting, 
and  expressing.  Nor  is  any  other  more  condensed,  because  none 
contains  more  things  in  so  little  space,  nor  is  obliged  to  express  so 
much  in  so  small  a  frame. 

From  that,  everything  takes  a  more  precise,  more  concise  form, 
and  a  greater  density.  The  color  is  stronger,  the  drawing  more 
intimate,  the  effect  more  central,  the  interest  better  circumscribed. 
Never  do  these  pictures  spread  out,  nor  do  they  risk  being  con- 
founded with  the  frame  or  escaping  from  it.  The  ignorance  or  the 
perfect  ingenuousness  of  Paul  Potter  must  be  possessed,  to  take  so 
little  care  about  the  organization  of  a  picture  by  effect,  which  seems 
to  be  a  fundamental  law  in  the  art  of  his  country. 

All  Dutch  painting  is  concave  ;  that  is,  it  is  composed  of  curves 
described  around  a  point  determined  by  the  interest,  —  circular  shad- 
ows around  a  dominant  light.  It  is  drawn,  colored,  and  lighted  like 
an  orb  with  a  heavy  base,  a  tapering  summit,  and  rounded  corners 
converging  to  the  centre,  —  whence  result  its  depth  and  the  dis- 
tance from  the  eye  of  the  objects  reproduced  in  it.  No  painting 


ORIGIN  AND  CHARACTER  OF  THE  DUTCH  SCHOOL.      139 

leads  with  greater  certainty  from  the  foreground  to  the  distance, 
from  the  frame  to  the  horizon.  It  can  be  dwelt  in,  moved  about 
in  ;  you  look  into  its  depths,  and  lift  your  eyes  to  measure  its  sky. 
Everything  contributes  to  this  illusion,  —  the  severity  of  the  aerial 
perspective,  the  perfect  relation  of  color  and  values  to  the  plane 
occupied  by  the  object.  All  painting  foreign  to  this  school  of  open 
sky,  of  aerial  surroundings,  of  distant  effects,  produces  pictures 
which  seem  flat  upon  the  canvas.  With  rare  exceptions,  Teniers, 
in  his  open-air  pictures  with  bright  scales  of  color,  derives  his  style 
from  Rubens  ;  he  has  his  spirit  and  ardor,  his  rather  superficial 
touch,  his  work,  more  elaborate  than  intimate ;  or,  to  force  the  ex- 
pression, it  might  be  said  that  he  decorates,  and  does  not  paint 
profoundly. 

I  have  not  said  all,  but  I  must  stop.  To  be  complete,  every  one 
of  the  elements  of  this  art,  so  simple  and  so  complex,  should  be  ex- 
amined one  after  the  other.  The  Dutch  palette  should  be  studied, 
and  an  examination  made  of  its  basis,  its  resources,  extent,  and  use, 
to  know  and  say  why  it  is  so  reduced,  almost  monochromatic,  and 
yet  so  rich  in  its  results,  common  to  all  and  yet  varied  ;  why  its 
lights  are  so  rare  and  narrow,  the  shadows  dominant ;  what  is  the 
most  ordinary  law  of  that  lighting  which  is  so  contrary  to  natural 
laws,  especially  out  of  doors.  And  it  would  be  interesting  to  de- 
termine how  much  this  conscientious  painting  contains  of  art,  of 
combinations,  of  necessary  measures,  of  systems  almost  always  in- 
genious. 

Finally  would  come  the  handiwork,  the  skill  with  .tools,  the  care, 


140       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

the  extraordinary  care ;  the  use  of  smooth  surfaces,  the  thinnesf  of 
the  paints,  their  radiant  quality,  the  gleam  of  metal  and  precivus 
stones.  It  would  be  necessary  to  seek  out  how  these  excellent 
masters  divided  their  labor,  —  if  they  painted  on  light  or  dark  under- 
tints, or  if,  according  to  the  example  of  the  primitive  schools,  they 
colored  solidly  or  glazed. 

All  these  questions,  especially  the  last,  have  been  the  subject  of 
many  conjectures,  and  have  never  been  elucidated  nor  solved. 

But  these  running  notes  are  neither  a  profound  study,  nor  a 
treatise,  nor  a  course  of  lectures.  The  idea  that  is  commonly  held 
of  Dutch  painting,  and  that  I  have  tried  to  sum  up,  suffices  to  wholly 
distinguish  it  from  others,  and  the  idea  of  the  Dutch  painter  at  his 
easel  is  equally  true  and  expressive  in  ail  points.  One  imagines  an 
attentive  man,  a  little  bent,  with  a  fresh  palette,  clear  oil,  brushes 
clean  and  fine,  a  reflective  air,  and  a  prudent  hand,  painting  in  a 
half-light,  and  this  man  is  an  especial  enemy  of  dust.  If  they  may 
all  be  judged  by  Gerhard  Douw  and  Mieris,  that  is  about  what  they 
were;  the  picture  is  like.  They  were  possibly  less  fastidious  than 
is  believed,  and  laughed  more  freely  than  is  supposed.  Genius  did 
not  radiate  otherwise  in  the  professional  order  of  their  good  habits. 
Van  Goyen  and  Wynants,  from  the  beginning  of  the  century,  had 
fixed  certain  laws.  These  lessons  were  transmitted  from  masters 
to  pupils,  and  for  a  hundred  years,  with  no  variation,  they  lived  on 
this  fund. 


III. 


THE  VIJVER. 

THIS  evening,  weary  of  reviewing  so  many  painted  canvases,  of 
admiring  and  disputing  with  myself,  I  took  a  walk  along  the  edge 
of  the  Vijver,  or  Pond. 

Reaching  it  towards  the  end  of  the  day,  I  remained  until  a  late 
hour.  It  is  a  peculiar  place,  very  solitary,  and  not  without  melancholy 
at  such  an  hour,  when  one  is  a  stranger  abandoned  by  the  escort  of 
joyous  years.  Imagine  a  great  basin  between  straight  quays  and 
black  palaces,  —  on  the  right,  a  deserted  promenade  shaded  with 
trees ;  beyond,  closed  houses  ;  on  the  left,  the  Binnenhof,  with  its 
foundation  in  the  water,  its  brick  facade,  slate  roof,  morose  aspect, 
its  physiognomy  of  another  age  and  yet  of  all  ages,  its  tragic  memo- 
ries, and,  finally,  I  know  not  what,  —  something  that  belongs  to 
certain  places  inhabited  by  history.  Far  away  is  the  spire  of  the 
cathedral,  hidden  towards  the  north,  already  chilled  by  night,  and 
drawn  like  a  light  wash  of  colorless  tint ;  in  the  pond  a  green 
island,  and  two  swans  swimming  softly  in  the  shadow  of  the  banks, 
and  tracing  only  very  slight  ripples  in  it ;  above  are  swallows  flying 
high  and  swiftly  in  the  evening  air.  There  is  perfect  silence,  pro- 


142       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND, 

found  repose,  a  total  forgetfulness  of  things  present  or  past.  Exact, 
but  colorless  reflections  sink  to  the  very  bottom  of  the  slumbering 
water,  like  the  half-dead  immobility  of  reminiscence  that  a  far  re- 
moved life  has  fixed  in  a  memory  three  quarters  extinct. 

I  looked  at  the  Museum,  the  Mauritshuis,  which  forms  the  southern 
angle  of  the  Vijver,  and  terminates  at  this  point  the  taciturn  line 
of  the  Binnenhof,  whose  purple  brickwork  is  this  evening  full  of 
gloom.  The  same  silence,  the  same  shadow,  the  same  desolation, 
envelop  all  the  phantoms  shut  up  in  the  Palace  of  the  Stadtholders, 
or  in  the  Museum.  I  thought  of  what  the  Mauritshuis  contained, 
I  thought  of  what  had  passed  in  the  Binnenhof.  In  the  first  were 
Rembrandt  and  Paul  Potter ;  but  here  abode  William  of  Orange, 
Barneveldt,  the  brothers  De  Witt,  Maurice  of  Nassau,  Heinsius, — 
all  memorable  names.  Add  to  them  the  memory  of  the  States 
General,  —  that  assembly  chosen  by  the  country,  within  the  country, 
from  those  citizens  who  were  most  enlightened,  most  vigilant,  most 
resisting,  most  heroic ;  that  living  part,  that  soul  of  the  Dutch 
people  which  lived  within  these  walls,  and  there  renewed  itself,  ever 
equable  and  constant,  holding  its  sittings  there  during  the  stormiest 
fifty  years  that  Holland  ever  knew,  holding  its  own  against  Spain 
and  England,  dictating  conditions  to  Louis  XIV.,  and  without  which 
neither  William  nor  Maurice  nor  the  grand  Pensionaries  would  have 
been  aught. 

To-morrow,  at  ten  o'clock,  a  few  pilgrims  will  knock  at  the  door 
of  the  Museum.  At  the  same  hour  there  will  be  no  one  in  the 
Binnenhof  nor  in  the  Buitenhof,  and  no  one,  I  fancy,  will  visit  the 


THE   VIJVER.  143 

Knights'  Hall,  where  there  are  so  many  spiders,  showing  how  great 
is  its  ordinary  solitude. 

Admitting  that  Fame,  who,  it  is  said,  watches  night  and  day  over 
all  glory,  descends  here,  and  rests  somewhere,  where  do  you  think  that 
she  arrests  her  flight  ?  Over  which  palace  does  she  fold  her  golden 
wings,  her  weary  pinions  ?  Over  the  palace  of  the  States  General,  or 
over  the  house  of  Potter  and  of  Rembrandt  ?  What  a  singular  distri- 
bution of  favor  and  forgetfulness !  Why  such  curiosity  to  see  a  pic- 
ture, and  so  little  interest  in  a  great  public  life  ?  Here  were  mighty 
statesmen,  great  citizens,  revolutions,  coups-d'etat,  tortures,  martyr- 
doms, controversies,  intestine  commotions,  —  all  those  things  which 
combine  at  the  birth  of  a  people,  when  this  people  belongs  to  another 
people  from  which  it  tears  itself  away,  to  a  religion  that  it  transforms, 
to  an  European  political  state  from  which  it  separates,  and  which  it 
seems  to  condemn  by  the  very  fact  of  separation.  All  this  history 
recounts ;  does  the  country  remember  it  ?  Where  do  you  find  living 
echoes  of  these  extraordinary  emotions  ? 

At  the  same  moment  a  very  young  man  was  painting  a  bull  in 
a  pasture ;  and  another,  to  make  himself  agreeable  to  a  physician, 
one  of  his  friends,  was  representing  him  in  a  dissecting-room  sur- 
rounded by  his  pupils  with  the  scalpel  in  the  arm  of  a  corpse.  By 
so  doing  they  gave  immortality  to  their  name,  their  school,  their 
century,  and  their  country. 

To  whom  then  belongs  our  gratitude  ?  To  what  is  worthiest, 
to  what  is  truest?  No.  To  what  is  greatest?  Sometimes.  To 
what  is  most  beautiful?  Always.  What  then  is  the  beautiful, — 


144       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

this  great  lever,  this  powerful  moving  spring,  this  mighty  magnet, 
that  may  almost  be  called  the  sole  attraction  of  history  ?  Is  it 
nearer  than  any  ideal  on  which  in  spite  of  himself  man  has  cast 
his  eyes  ?  Is  the  great  so  seductive  only  because  it  is  more  easy 
to  confound  it  with  the  beautiful  ?  It  is  necessary  to  be  very  ad- 
vanced in  morals,  or  very  learned  in  metaphysics,  to  say  of  a  good 
action  or  of  a  truth  that  it  is  beautiful.  The  most  simple  man  says 
it  of  a  grand  deed.  At  bottom,  we  naturally  love  only  what  is 
beautiful.  Imagination  turns  thither,  sensibility  is  excited  by  it, 
all  hearts  precipitate  themselves  towards  it.  If  we  seek  carefully 
for  what  the  mass  of  mankind  loves  most  voluntarily,  it  may  be 
seen  that  it  is  not  what  touches,  nor  what  convinces,  nor  what 
edifies  it ;  it  is  what  charms  it,  and  excites  its  wonder. 

Thus,  when  an  historical  personage  has  not  in  his  life  this  element 
of  powerful  attraction,  we  say  that  he  lacks  something.  He  is 
understood  by  moralists  and  learned  men,  unknown  to  others.  If 
the  contrary  happens,  his  memory  is  safe.  A  people  disappears, 
with  its  laws,  morals,  its  policy,  and  its  conquests ;  there  remains 
of  its  history  but  one  piece  of  marble  or  bronze,  and  that  witness 
survives.  There  was  a  man,  —  a  very  great  man  by  his  lights,  his 
courage,  his  political  judgment,  by  his  public  acts  ;  but  perhaps 
his  name  might  not  have  been  known  if  he  had  not  been  embalmed 
in  literature,  and  if  some  sculptor  friend  had  not  been  employed  by 
him  to  adorn  the  pediment  of  a  temple.  Another  was  a  coxcomb, 
light,  dissipated,  witty,  a  libertine,  valiant  at  times  ;  but  he  is  spoken 
of  oftener  and  more  universally  than  Solon  or  Plato,  Socrates  or 


THE    VIJVER.  145 

Themistocles.  Was  he  wiser  or  braver  ?  Did  he  better  serve  truth, 
justice,  and  the  interests  of  his  country  ?  He  had,  above  all,  the 
charm  of  having  passionately  loved  the  beautiful,  —  women,  books, 
pictures,  and  statues.  Another  was  an  unfortunate  general,  a  me- 
diocre statesman,  a  heedless  chief  of  an  empire  ;  but  he  had  the  good 
luck  to  love  one  of  the  most  seductive  women  in  history,  —  a  woman 

who  was,  it  is  said,  beauty  itself. 

« 

About  ten  o'clock  the  rain  fell.  It  was  night ;  the  pond  gleamed 
almost  imperceptibly,  like  a  remnant  of  aerial  twilight  forgotten  in 
a  corner  of  the  town.  Fame  did  not  appear.  I  know  what  may  be 
the  objections  to  her  preferences,  and  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  judge 
them. 


IV. 

THE  SUBJECT  IN   DUTCH   PAINTING. 

ONE  thing  strikes  you  in  studying  the  moral  foundation  of  Dutch 
art,  and  that  is  the  total  absence  of  what  we  call  now  a  subject. 

From  the  day  when  painting  ceased  to  borrow  from  Italy  its  style, 
its  poetry,  its  taste  for  history,  for  mythology  and  Christian  legends, 
up  to  the  moment  of  decadence,  when  it  returned  thither,  —  from 
Bloemaert  and  De  Poelemburg  to  Lairesse,  Philippe  Vandyck,  and 
later  Troost,  —  more  than  a  century  elapsed,  during  which  the  great 
Dutch  School  appeared  to  think  of  nothing  but  painting  well.  It 
was  content  to  look  around  it,  and  to  dispense  with  imagination. 
Nudities,  which  were  out  of  place  in  this  representation  of  real  life, 
disappeared.  Ancient  history  was  forgotten,  and  contemporaneous 
history  too,  which  is  the  most  singular  phenomenon.  There  is 
hardly  to  be  perceived,  drowned  in  this  vast  sea  of  genre  scenes, 
one  picture  like  Terburg's  Peace  of  Munster,  or  some  few  deeds 
of  the  maritime  wars,  represented  by  vessels  cannonading  each 
other, —  for  instance,  an  Arrival  of  Maurice  of  Nassau  at  Scheve- 
ningen  (Cuyp,  Six  Museum) ;  a  Departure  of  Charles  II.,  from 


THE  SUBJECT  IN  DUTCH  PAINTING.  147 

Scheveningen  (June  2,  1660),  by  Lingelbach,  and  this  Lingelbach 
is  a  sorry  painter.  The  great  artists  hardly  treated  such  subjects. 
And  apart  from  the  painters  of  marines,  or  of  exclusively  military 
pictures,  not  even  one  of  them  seemed  to  have  any  aptitude  for 
treating  them.  Van  der  Meulen,  that  fine  painter,  issue  by  Snayers 
of  the  School  of  Antwerp,  a  thorough  Fleming,  though  adopted  by 
France,  pensioned  by  Louis  XIV.,  and  the  historiographer  of  our 
French  glories,  gave  to  the  Dutch  anecdote  painters  a  very  seductive 
example,  followed  by  nobody.  The  great  civic  representations  of 
Ravesteyn,  Hals,  Van  der  Heist,  Flinck,  Karel  Dujardin,  and  others, 
are,  as  is  well  known,  portrait  pictures,  where  the  action  is  unim- 
portant, and  which,  although  historical  documents  of  great  interest, 
take  no  place  in  the  history  of  the  time. 

In  thinking  of  the  events  contained  in  the  history  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  in  Holland,  the  gravity  of  the  military  deeds,  the 
energy  of  this  people  of  soldiers  and  sailors  in  their  fights,  and 
what  they  suffered,  —  in  imagining  the  spectacle  that  the  country 
must  have  offered  in  those  terrible  times,  one  is  filled  with  surprise 
to  see  their  painting  thus  indifferent  to  what  was  the  very  life  of 
the  people. 

There  was  fighting  abroad  by  land  and  by  sea,  on  the  frontiers 
and  in  the  heart  of  the  country ;  at  home  they  were  tearing  each 
other  to  pieces.  Barneveldt  was  decapitated  in  1619 ;  the  brothers 
De  Witt  were  beheaded  in  1672  ;  fifty-three  years  apart,  the  strug- 
gle between  the  Republicans  and  the  Orangemen  was  complicated 
with  the  same  religious  or  philosophical  discords,  —  here  Arminians 


148       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

against  Gomarites,  there  Voetians  against  Cocceians,*  bringing  about 
the  same  tragedies.  There  was  a  permanent  war  with  Spain,  with 
England,  with  Louis  XIV.  Holland  was  invaded  ;  how  she  defended 
herself  is  known  :  the  peace  of  Munster  was  signed  in  1648  ;  the 
peace  of  Nimeguen,  in  1678 ;  the  peace  of  Ryswick,  in  1698.  The 
war  of  the  Spanish  Succession  opened  with  the  new  century,  and 
it  can  be  said  that  all  the  painters  of  the  grand  and  pacific  school 
of  which  I  treat,  died,  having  hardly  ceased  for  a  single  day  to  hear 
the  cannon.  What  they  were  doing  at  that  time,  their  works  show. 
The  portrait  painters  painted  their  great  warriors,  their  princes,  their 
most  illustrious  citizens,  their  poets,  their  writers,  themselves  or  their 
friends.  The  landscape  painters  inhabited  the  fields,  dreaming,  draw- 
ing animals,  copying  huts,  living  a  farm-life,  painting  trees,  canals, 
and  skies,  or  they  travelled  ;  they  went  to  Italy  and  established  a 
colony  there,  met  Claude  Lorraine,  forgot  themselves  at  Rome,  for- 
got their  country,  and  died  like  Karel,  without  recrossing  the  Alps. 
Others  scarcely  came  out  of  their  studios  but  to  frequent  tav- 
erns, to  prowl  about  places  of  ill-fame,  to  study  their  manners 
when  they  did  not  enter  into  them  on  their  own  account,  which 
rarely  happened. 

The  war  did  not  prevent  peaceful  life  somewhere,  and  into  that 
tranquil  and  as  it  were  indifferent  corner  they  bore  their  easels,  and 
pursued,  with  a  placidity  that  may  well  surprise,  their  meditations, 

*  F.  Gomar,  a  celebrated  Protestant  minister  of  Bruges,  1563-1609,  founded  this  sect. 
J.  Cocceius,  an  Orientalist  and  theologian  of  Bremen,  1603-1669,  invented  a  very  singular 
system  for  the  interpretation  of  the  Bible.  Gilbert  Voet,  Dutch  theologian  and  controver- 
sialist, 1593-1680,  rendered  himself  odious  by  his  persecutions  of  Descartes.  —  TR. 


THE  SUBJECT  IN  DUTCH  PAINTING.  149 

their  studies,  and  their  charming,  smiling  industry.  And  as  every- 
day life  went  on  all  the  same,  it  was  domestic  habits,  private,  rustic, 
or  urban,  that  they  undertook  to  paint  in  spite  of  everything,  through 
everything,  to  the  exclusion  of  everything  that  caused  the  emotion, 
anguish,  patriotic  effort,  and  grandeur  of  their  country.  Not  a 
trouble,  not  an  anxiety,  existed  in  this  world  so  strangely  sheltered, 
that  this  might  be  taken  for  the  golden  age  of  Holland,  if  history 
did  not  inform  us  to  the  contrary. 

Their  woods  are  tranquil,  the  highways  secure,  boats  come  and  go 
along  the  course  of  the  canals  ;  rustic  festivities  have  not  ceased  ; 
on  the  threshold  of  beer-shops  men  smoke,  while  dancing  goes  on 
within.  There  is  hunting  and  fishing  and  promenading.  A  faint 
still  smoke  issues  from  the  roof  of  the  little  farmhouses,  where 
nothing  savors  of  danger.  Children  go  to  school,  and  within  the 
dwellings  there  are  the  order,  peace,  and  imperturbable  security  of 
happy  days.  The  seasons  succeed  each  other ;  there  is  skating  on 
the  waters  that  were  navigated,  fire  on  the  hearth  ;  doors  are  closed, 
curtains  drawn  ;  the  asperities  come  from  the  climate  and  not  from 
man.  It  is  always  the  regular  course  of  things  that  nothing  deranges, 
and  a  permanent  foundation  of  little  daily  facts  with  which  they  take 
so  much  delight  in  composing  their  excellent  pictures. 

When  a  skilful  painter  of  equestrian  scenes  shows  us  by  chance 
a  canvas  where  horses  are  charging,  men  fighting  with  pistols  and 
swords,  where  they  are  stamping,  struggling,  and  exterminating  each 
other  quite  fiercely,  all  this  takes  place  in  spots  where  war  is  out  of 
place,  and  danger  not  at  home.  These  murders  savor  of  fantastic 


150       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

anecdote,  and  it  is  perceived  that  the  painter  was  not  greatly  moved 
by  them  himself.  It  was  the  Italians,  Berghem,  Wouvermans,  Lingel- 
bach,  the  not  over  truthful  painters  of  the  picturesque,  who  perchance 
amused  themselves  by  painting  these  things.  Where  did  they  see 
these  fights  ? —  on  this  side  of,  or  beyond  the  mountains  ? 

There  is  something  of  Salvator  Rosa,  minus  the  style,  in  these 
simulated  skirmishes  or  grand  battles,  whose  cause,  moment,  and 
theatre  are  unknown  ;  nor  is  it  very  clear  who  are  the  parties  en- 
gaged. The  titles  of  the  pictures  themselves  indicate  sufficiently 
the  part  played  by  the  imagination  of  the  painters.  The  Hague 
Museum  possesses  two  great  pages,  very  fine  and  very  bloody,  where 
the  blows  fall  thick,  and  wounds  are  not  spared.  One,  by  Berghem, 
—  a  very  rare  picture,  astonishingly  well  executed,  —  a  tour  de  force 
in  action,  tumult,  the  admirable  order  of  the  effect,  and  the  per- 
fection of  the  details,  —  a  canvas  not  at  all  historical,  —  bears  for 
title,  A  Convoy  Attacked  in  a  Mountain  Pass.  The  other,  one 
of  the  largest  pictures  that  Wouvermans  has  signed,  is  entitled 
A  Great  Battle.  It  recalls  the  picture  at  the  Munich  Pinacothek, 
known  as  the  Battle  of  Nordlingen  ;  but  there  is  nothing  more  de- 
cided in  this,  and  the  historically  national  value  of  this  very  remark- 
able work  is  no  better  established  than  the  veracity  of  Berghem's 
picture. 

Everywhere,  besides,  there  are  episodes  of  brigandage  or  anony- 
mous fights  which  certainly  were  not  lacking  among  them,  and  yet 
they  all  have  the  appearance  of  being  painted  from  hearsay,  during 
or  after  their  journeys  in  the  Apennines. 


THE  SUBJECT  IN  DUTCH  PAINTING.  151 

Dutch  history  has  not  marked  at  all  —  or  so  little  that  it  amounts  to 
nothing  —  the  painting  of  those  troubled  times,  and  seems  not  to  have 
agitated  the  mind  of  the  painters  for  a  single  moment.  Note,  more- 
over, that  even  in  such  of  their  painting  as  is  properly  picturesque 
and  anecdotic,  there  is  not  the  slightest  anecdote  to  be  perceived. 

There  is  no  well-determined  subject,  not  one  action  that  requires 
reflection  upon  the  composition  or  is  expressive  or  particularly  signifi- 
cant. No  invention,  no  scene  which  trenches  upon  the  uniformity  of 
this  existence  of  the  fields  or  the  town,  commonplace,  vulgar,  devoid 
of  pursuits,  of  passions,  one  might  almost  say  of  sentiment.  Drinking, 
smoking,  dancing,  and  kissing  maids  cannot  be  called  very  rare  or 
attractive  incidents.  Nor  are  milking  cows,  taking  them  to  water, 
and  loading  haycarts,  notable  accidents  in  a  life  of  husbandry. 

One  is  forever  tempted  to  question  these  indifferent  and  phlegmatic 
painters,  and  to  ask  them,  Is  there  then  nothing  new  ?  nothing 
in  your  barns  and  farms,  nothing  in  your  houses  ?  There  has  been 
a  high  wind  ;  has  it  destroyed  nothing  ?  There  has  been  a  thunder- 
storm; has  the  lightning  struck  nothing,  —  neither  your  fields,  nor 
roofs,  nor  laborers  ?  Children  are  born  ;  are  there  no  birthdays  ? 
They  die  ;  is  there  no  mourning  ?  You  marry ;  are  there  no  decent 
rejoicings  ?  Do  they  never  weep  among  you  ?  You  have  all  been 
lovers,  but  how  do  we  know  it  ?  You  have  suffered,  you  have  pitied 
the  misery  of  others,  —  you  have  had  before  your  eyes  all  the  wounds, 
the  pains,  the  calamities  of  human  life ;  where  can  it  be  discovered 
that  you  have  had  one  day  of 'tenderness,  of  sorrow,  or  true  pity? 
Your  time,  like  all  others,  has  seen  quarrels,  passions,  jealousies,  gal- 


152        THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

lant  intrigues,  and  duels  ;  what  do  you  show  us  of  all  those  ?  Plenty 
of  libertine  behavior,  drunkenness,  coarseness,  sordid  idleness  ;  people 
who  embrace  as  if  they  were  fighting,  and  here  and  there  fisticuffs  and 
kicks  exchanged  in  the  exasperation  of  wine  and  love.  You  love  chil- 
dren, you  flog  them,  they  do  mischief  in  a  corner,  and  such  are  your 
family  pictures. 

Compare  epochs  and  countries.  I  do  not  speak  of  the  contem- 
porary German  School,  nor  of  the  English  School,  where  everything 
was  subject,  art,  intention,  as  in  their  dramas,  comedies,  and  farces,  — 
where  painting  is  too  impregnated  with  literature,  since  it  lives  but 
for  that  and  in  the  eyes  of  certain  people  dies  of  it,  —  but  take  a 
catalogue  of  a  French  exhibition,  read  the  titles  of  the  pictures,  and 
then  look  over  those  of  the  museums  at  Amsterdam  and  the  Hague. 

In  France  every  picture  which  has  not  a  title,  and  consequently 
contains  no  subject,  runs  a  great  risk  of  being  reckoned  as  a  work 
neither  considered  nor  serious  ;  and  that  is  not  only  for  to-day,  it  has 
been  so  for  a  hundred  years.  Since  the  day  when  Greuze  imagined 
the  picture  of  sentiment,  and  with  the  great  applause  of  Diderot 
conceived  a  picture  as  a  scene  in  a  theatre  is  conceived,  and  put 
into  painting  the  homely  dramas  of  the  family,  —  since  that  day  what 
do  we  see  ?  Has  genre  painting  in  France  done  anything  but  invent 
scenes,  compel  history,  illustrate  literature,  paint  the  past,  paint  the 
present  but  little,  contemporary  France  very  little  indeed,  and  give 
us  a  great  many  curiosities  of  foreign  manners  and  climates  ? 

It  suffices  to  cite  names  to  revive  a  long  series  of  piquant  and 
beautiful  works,  ephemeral  or  ever  celebrated,  all  signifying  some- 


THE  SUBJECT  IN  DUTCH  PAINTING.  153 

thing,  representing  all  sorts  of  facts  and  sentiments,  expressing  pas- 
sions or  relating  anecdotes,  all  having  their  principal  person  and 
their  hero,  —  Granet,  Bonington,  Leopold  Robert,  Delaroche,  Ary 
Scheffer,  Roqueplan,  Decamps,  Delacroix,  —  I  stop  with  the  dead 
artists.  Do  you  remember  the  Francis  I.,  Charles  V.,  the  Due  de 
Guise,  Mignon,  Margaret,  The  Lion  Lover,  the  Vandyck  at  Lon- 
don ;  all  the  pages  borrowed  from  Goethe,  Shakespeare,  Byron,  and 
Walter  Scott,  and  from  the  history  of  Venice  ;  the  Hamlets,  Yoricks, 
Macbeths,  Mephistopheles,  Polonius,  The  Giaour,  Lara,  Goetz  de 
Berlichingen,  The  Prisoner  of  Chillon,  Ivanhoe,  Quentin  Durward, 
The  Bishop  of  Liege,  and  then  The  Foscari,  Marino  Faliero  and  The 
Boat  of  Don  Juan,  and  yet  again  The  History  of  Samson,  The  Cimbri, 
preceding  the  oriental  curiosities  ?  And  since,  if  we  prepare  a  list 
of  the  genre  pictures  that  have  year  by  year  charmed,  moved,  and 
impressed  us,  from  the  Scenes  of  the  Inquisition,  and  the  Colloquy 
of  Poissy,  to  Charles  V.  at  St.  Just,  —  if  we  recall,  I  say,  in  these 
last  thirty  years,  whatever  the  French  School  has  produced  most 
striking  and  honorable  in  genre  painting,  we  shall  find  that  the 
dramatic,  pathetic,  romantic,  historical,  or  sentimental  element  has 
contributed  almost  as  much  as  the  painters'  talent  to  the  success 
of  their  works. 

Do  you  perceive  anything  like  this  in  Holland  ?  The  catalogues 
are  desperately  insignificant  and  vague.  The  Spinner  with  Cattle  at 
the  Hague,  of  Dujardin  ;  —  of  Wouvermans,  The  Arrival  at  the  Inn, 
The  Halt  of  the  Hunters,  The  Country  Riding  School,  The  Hay 
Wagon  (a  celebrated  picture),  A  Camp,  The  Hunters'  Rest,  etc. ;  — 


154       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

of  Berghem,  A  Boar  Hunt,  An  Italian  Ford,  A  Pastoral,  etc. ;  —  of 
Metzu,  we  have  The  Hunter,  The  Lovers  of  Music  ;  —  of  Terburg, 
The  Despatch  ;  —  and  so  on  with  Gerhard  Douw,  Ostade,  Mieris,  even 
with  Jan  Steen,  the  most  wide-awake  of  all,  and  the  only  one  who, 
by  the  profound  or  gross  meaning  of  his  anecdotes,  is  an  inventor, 
an  ingenious  caricaturist,  a  humorist  of  the  family  of  Hogarth,  and 
a  literary  painter,  almost  a  comic  author  in  his  facetiousness.  The 
finest  works  are  concealed  under  titles  of  the  same  platitude.  The 
fine  Metzu  of  the  Van  der  Hoop  Museum  is  called  The  Hunter's 
Gift,  and  no  one  would  suspect  that  the  Rest  by  the  Farm  desig- 
nates an  incomparable  Paul  Potter,  the  pearl  of  the  d'Aremberg 
Gallery.  We  know  what  is  meant  by  the  Bull  of  Paul  Potter,  and 
the  still  more  celebrated  Cow  Admiring  Herself,  or  the  Cow  of 
St.  Petersburg.  As  to  the  Anatomical  Lecture,  and  the  Night 
Watch,  I  may  be  permitted  to  think  that  the  significance  of  the 
subject  is  not  what  assures  to  these  two  works  the  immortality 
which  they  have  acquired. 

It  seems,  then,  that  everywhere  but  in  the  Dutch  School  are  to 
be  found  gifts  of  the  heart  and  mind,  sensibility,  tenderness,  gener- 
ous sympathy  for  the  dramas  of  history,  extreme  experience  of  those 
of  life,  pathos,  power  to  move,  interest,  unexpectedness,  and  in- 
struction. And  the  school  which  has  most  exclusively  occupied 
itself  with  the  real  world  seems  the  one  of  all  that  has  most  de- 
spised moral  interest,  and  while  it  is  also  the  one  which  has  most 
passionately  devoted  itself  to  the  study  of  the  picturesque,  it  seems 
less  than  any  other  to  have  discovered  its  living  springs. 


THE  SUBJECT  IN  DUTCH  PAINTING.  1 55 

What  reason  had  a  Dutch  painter  to  make  a  picture  ?  None ; 
and  observe  that  no  one  ever  asked  him  to  do  it.  A  peasant  with 
a  nose  swollen  with  wine  looks  at  you  with  his  big  eye,  and  laughs 
with  all  his  teeth  showing,  while  he  lifts  his  jug ;  —  if  the  thing  is 
well  painted,  it  has  its  price.  With  us,  if  a  subject  is  lacking, 
there  must  be  at  least  a  true  and  lively  sentiment  and  a  percepti- 
ble emotion  in  the  painter  to  take  its  place.  A  landscape  not 
strongly  tinted  with  the  colors  of  a  man  is  a  failure.  We  do  not 
know,  as  Ruysdael  did,  how  to  make  a  picture  of  the  rarest  beauty, 
of  a  stream  of  foaming  water  falling  between  brown  rocks.  An 
animal  in  the  pasture  which  has  not  its  idea,  as  peasants  say  of  the 
instinct  of  brutes,  is  a  thing  not  to  be  painted. 

A  very  original  painter  of  our  time,  an  elevated  soul,  a  sorrowful 
spirit,  a  good  heart,  and  a  truly  rural  nature,  has  spoken  of  the 
country  and  its  country  folk,  of  the  asperity,  the  melancholy,  and 
the  nobility  of  their  labor,  —  things  that  no  Hollander  would  ever 
have  thought  of  finding.*  He  has  said  them  in  a  slightly  barbar- 
ous language,  and  in  formulas  where  the  thought  has  more  vigor 
and  clearness  than  the  hand.  We  have  been  infinitely  grateful  to 
him  for  his  tendencies  ;  we  have  seen  in  him  in  French  painting 
something  like  the  sensibility  of  a  Burns  less  skilful  in  making  him- 
self understood.  To  sum  up  the  account,  has  he,  or  has  he  not 
made  and  left  fine  pictures  ?  Have  his  form  and  his  language,  —  I 
mean  the  exterior  envelope  without  which  the  works  of  the  spirit 
neither  are  nor  live,  —  have  they  the  qualities  necessary  to  consecrate 

*  Jean  Franjois  Millet.  —  TR. 


156       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

him  as  a  fine  painter,  and  assure  his  living  for  a  long  time  ?  He  is 
a  profound  thinker  beside  Paul  Potter  and  Cuyp,  he  is  an  attractive 
dreamer  compared  to  Terburg  and  Metzu  ;  he  has  something  in- 
contestably  noble  when  we  think  of  the  trivialities  of  Steen,  of 
Ostade,  and  of  Brouwer ;  as  a  man  he  can  put  them  all  to  the 
blush,  but  as  a  painter  does  he  equal  them  ? 

What  is  the  conclusion  ?  you  ask. 

First,  is  it  necessary  to  conclude  ?  France  has  shown  much  in- 
ventive genius,  but  few  of  the  truly  pictorial  faculties.  Holland  has 
imagined  nothing,  but  she  has  painted  miraculously  well.  This  is 
certainly  a  great  difference.  Does  it  follow  that  we  must  absolutely 
choose  between  the  qualities  which  are  opposite  in  two  peoples,  as 
if  there  were  between  them  a  certain  contradiction  which  would 
render  them  irreconcilable?  I  really  do  not  know  exactly.  Till 
now  the  thought  has  truly  sustained  only  great  plastic  works.  In 
reducing  itself  to  enter  into  works  of  medium  order,  it  seems  to 
have  lost  its  virtue. 

Sensibility  has  saved  some  of  them  ;  curiousness  has  destroyed  a 
great  number  ;  mind  has  ruined  them  all. 

Is  this  the  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  preceding  observa- 
tions ?  Certainly  another  might  be  found,  but  to-day  I  do  not  per- 
ceive it 


V. 

PAUL  POTTER. 

WITH  the  Anatomical  Lecture  and  the  Night  Watch,  Paul  Potter's 
Bull  is  the  most  celebrated  thing  in  Holland.  The  Hague  Museum 
owes  to  it  a  large  part  of  the  curiosity  of  which  it  is  the  object.  It 
is  not  the  largest  of  Paul  Potter's  canvases,  but  it  is  at  least  the  only 
one  of  his  large  pictures  which  merits  serious  attention.  The  Bear 
Hunt  in  the  Amsterdam  Museum,  supposing  it  to  be  authentic,  and 
separating  it  from  the  repainting  which  disfigures  it,  was  never  any- 
thing but  the  extravagance  of  a  youth,  —  the  grossest  error  he  ever 
committed.  The  Bull  is  priceless.  Estimating  it  according  to  the 
actual  value  of  the  works  of  Paul  Potter,  no  one  doubts  that  if  it  were 
put  up  for  sale  it  would  attain  in  the  markets  of  Europe  a  fabulous  price. 
Is  it,  then,  a  fine  picture  ?  Not  at  all.  Does  it  deserve  the  impor- 
tance attached  to  it  ?  Unquestionably.  Is  Paul  Potter,  then,  a  very 
great  painter  ?  Very  great.  Does  it  follow  that  he  paints  as  well 
as  is  supposed  ?  Not  precisely.  There  is  in  this  a  misunderstanding 
that  it  would  be  well  to  dispel. 

On  the  day  when  the  fictitious  markets  of  which  I  speak  shall  be 
opened,  and  consequently  one  will  have  the  right  to  discuss  without 


158       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

regard  to  merits  this  famous  work,  if  any  one  dared  to  express  the 
truth,  he  would  say  about  what  follows :  — 

"  The  reputation  of  the  picture  is  at  once  very  much  exaggerated 
and  very  legitimate ;  it  results  from  an  ambiguity.  It  is  considered 
as  an  exceptional  page  of  painting,  which  is  an  error.  It  is  thought 
to  be  an  example  to  be  followed,  a  model  to  copy,  in  which  ignorant 
generations  can  learn  the  technical  secrets  of  their  art.  In  that  there 
is  also  a  mistake,  the  greatest  mistake  of  all.  The  work  is  ugly,  and 
unconsidered  ;  the  painting  is  monotonous,  thick,  heavy,  pale,  and 
dry.  The  arrangement  is  of  the  utmost  poverty.  Unity  is  wanting 
in  this  picture  which  begins  nobody  knows  where,  has  no  end,  re- 
ceives the  light  without  being  illuminated,  distributes  it  at  random, 
escapes  everywhere,  and  comes  out  of  the  frame,  so  entirely  does 
it  seem  to  be  painted  flat  upon  the  canvas.  It  is  too  full  without 
being  entirely  occupied.  Neither  lines,  nor  color,  nor  distribution 
of  effect  give  it  those  first  conditions  of  existence  indispensable  to 
every  well-regulated  work.  The  animals  are  ridiculous  in  form.  The 
dun  cow  with  a  white  head  is  built  of  some  hard  substance.  The 
sheep  and  the  ram  are  modelled  in  plaster.  As  to  the  shepherd, 
no  one  defends  him.  Two  parts  only  of  the  picture  seem  made  to 
be  understood,  the  wide  sky  and  the  huge  bull.  The  cloud  is  in  its 
true  place  ;  it  is  lighted  and  colored  as  it  should  be,  where  it  is  ap- 
propriate to  the  needs  of  the  principal  object,  which  it  is  made  to 
accompany,  to  give  value  to  its  relief.  By  a  wise  understanding 
of  the  law  of  contrasts,  the  painter  has  greatly  lowered  the  tone  of 
the  light  colors  and  the  dark  shadows  of  the  animal.  The  darkest 


PAUL  POTTER.  159 

part  is  opposed  to  the  light  part  of  the  sky,  and  that  which  is  most 
energetic  and  most  trenchant  in  the  brute  to  what  is  most  limpid 
in  the  atmosphere  ;  but  this  is  hardly  a  merit,  given  the  simplicity 
of  the  problem.  The  rest  is  an  accompaniment  that  might  be  cut 
out  without  regret,  greatly  to  the  advantage  of  the  picture." 

This  may  seem  a  rough  criticism,  but  it  is  exact.  And  yet  public 
opinion,  less  punctilious  or  more  clairvoyant,  would  say  that  the  sig- 
nature was  well  worth  the  price. 

Public  opinion  is  never  wholly  mistaken.  By  uncertain  roads, 
often  by  the  best  selected  ones,  it  arrives  finally  at  the  expression 
of  a  true  sentiment.  When  it  is  given  to  some  one,  the  motives, 
by  virtue  of  which  it  is  given,  are  not  always  the  best,  but  there 
are  always  other  good  reasons  found,  by  virtue  of  which  it  has 
been  given  wisely.  It  makes  mistakes  in  titles,  sometimes  it  takes 
faults  for  merits ;  it  prizes  a  man  for  his  way  of  working,  which  is 
the  least  of  his  merits ;  it  may  believe  that  a  painter  paints  well 
when  he  paints  badly,  because  he  paints  minutely.  What  amazes 
in  Paul  Potter  is  the  imitation  of  objects  pushed  to  an  extreme. 
It  is  ignored  or  it  is  not  noticed  in  such  a  case  that  the  painter's 
soul  is  worth  more  than  the  work,  and  his  manner  of  feeling  infi- 
nitely superior  to  the  result. 

When  he  painted  the  Bull  in  1647,  Paul  Potter  was  only  twenty- 
three  years  old.  He  was  a  very  young  man,  and  according  to  what 
is  common  among  men  of  twenty-three,  he  was  a  mere  child.  To 
what  school  did  he  belong  ?  To  none.  Had  he  had  masters  ?  No 
other  teachers  of  his  are  known  but  his  father,  Pieter  Simonsz 


160      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

Potter,  an  obscure  painter,  and  Jacob  de  Weth,  of  Haarlem,  who  also 
had  not  knowledge  enough  to  act  upon  a  pupil  either  for  good  or 
evil  Paul  Potter  found  then,  either  around  his  cradle  or  in  the 
studio  of  his  second  master,  nothing  but  simple  advice  and  no  doc- 
trines ;  but,  strange  to  say,  the  pupil  asked  nothing  further.  Till 
1647  Paul  Potter  lived  between  Amsterdam  and  Haarlem,  that  is 
between  Frans  Hals  and  Rembrandt,  in  the  heart  of  the  most  active, 
the  most  stirring  art,  the  richest  in  celebrated  masters,  that  the  world 
has  ever  known,  except  in  Italy  in  the  preceding  century.  Teach- 
ers were  not  wanting ;  there  was  only  the  embarrassment  of  choice. 
Wynants  was  forty-six  years  old  ;  Cuyp  forty-two  ;  ferburg  thirty- 
nine  ;  Ostade  thirty-seven  ;  Metzu  thirty-two ;  Wouvermans  twenty- 
seven  ;  Berghem,  who  was  about  his  own  age,  was  twenty-three. 
Many  of  them,  even  the  youngest,  were  members  of  the  brotherhood 
of  St.  Luke.  Finally,  the  greatest  of  all,  and  the  most  illustrious, 
Rembrandt,  had  already  produced  the  Night  Watch,  and  he  was  a 
master  who  might  have  been  a  temptation.  But  what  did  Paul 
Potter  do?  How  did  he  isolate  himself  in  the  heart  of  this  rich 
and  crowded  school,  where  practical  skill  was  extreme,  talent  uni- 
versal, the  manner  of  rendering  rather  similar,  and  yet,  an  exqui- 
site thing  in  those  beautiful  days,  the  manner  of  feeling  so  very 
individual?  Had  he  co-disciples?  None  are  seen.  His  friends 
are  unknown.  He  was  born,  but  we  hardly  know  the  year  with 
exactitude.  He  awoke  early ;  at  fourteen  years  signed  a  charming 
etching ;  at  twenty-two,  though  ignorant  on  many  points,  he  was 
of  unexampled  maturity  in  others.  He  labored,  and  produced  work 


PAUL  POTTER.  l6l 

upon  work,  and  some  of  them  were  admirable.  He  accumulated 
them  in  a  few  years  with  haste  and  abundance,  as  if  death  was  at 
his  heels,  and  yet  with  an  application  and  a  patience  which  make 
this  prodigious  labor  seem  a  miracle.  He  was  married  at  an  age 
young  for  another,  very  late  for  him,  for  it  was  on  July  3,  1650,  and 
on  August  4,  1654,  four  years  after,  death  took  him,  possessing  all 
his  glory,  but  before  he  had  learned  his  trade.  What  could  be 
simpler,  briefer,  more  complete  ?  Take  genius  and  no  lessons,  brave 
study,  an  ingenuous  and  learned  production  resulting  from  attentive 
observation  and  reflection,  add  to  this  a  great  natural  charm,  the 
gentleness  of  a  meditative  mind,  the  application  of  a  conscience 
burdened  with  scruples,  the  melancholy  inseparable  from  solitary 
labor,  and  possibly  the  sadness  of  a  man  out  of  health,  and  you  have 
nearly  imagined  Paul  Potter. 

With  the  exception  of  the  charm,  in  this  respect  the  Bull  at  the 
Hague  represents  him  wonderfully.  It  is  a  great  study,  too  great 
from  the  point  of  view  of  good  sense,  but  not  too  great  for  the  re- 
search which  was  its  object,  and  for  the  instruction  the  painter 
derived  from  it. 

Remember  that  Paul  Potter,  when  compared  with  his  brilliant 
contemporaries,  was  ignorant  of  all  the  cleverness  of  his  trade.  I 
do  not  speak  of  the  tricks  which  his  candor  never  suspected.  He 
studied  especially  forms  and  their  aspects,  in  their  absolute  sim- 
plicity. The  least  artifice  was  an  embarrassment  that  would  have 
disturbed  him  because  it  would  have  altered  the  clear  sight  of 
things.  A  great  bull  in  a  vast  plain,  a  wide  sky,  and,  so  to  speak, 

ii 


162       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

no  horizon,  —  what  could  be  a  better  occasion  for  a  student  to  learn 
once  for  all  a  crowd  of  very  difficult  things,  and  to  know  them,  as 
they  say,  "by  rule  and  measure  ?  The  movement  is  simple,  —  none 
was  necessary,  —  the  gesture  true,  the  head  admirably  living.  The 
animal  shows  its  age,  its  type,  its  character,  temperament,  length, 
height,  joints,  bones,  muscles,  its  hide  rough  or  smooth,  tangled  or 
curled,  its  loose  or  tight  skin,  all  in  perfection.  The  head,  the  eye, 
the  shoulders,  the  fore  quarters,  are  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  very 
simple  and  powerful  observer,  and  are  a  very  rare  piece  of  work, 
perhaps  unequalled.  I  do  not  say  that  the  subject  is  beautiful,  or 
the  color  well  chosen  ;  but  matter  and  color  are  here  too  visibly 
subordinate  to  the  preoccupation  of  form,  for  much  to  be  expected 
in  this  regard,  when  the  draughtsman  has  given  us  almost  every- 
thing in  another.  There  is  more ;  the  very  tone,  and  the  work  upon 
those  parts  that  are  violently  observed,  result  in  rendering  nature 
as  it  really  is,  in  its  relief,  its  shadows,  its  power,  almost  its  mys- 
teries themselves.  It  is  not  possible  to  have  a  more  circumscribed 
but  most  decided  aim,  or  to  attain  it  with  more  success.  It  is  called 
Paul  Potter's  Bull,  but  I  affirm  that  that  is  not  enough  ;  it  might 
be  called  trie  Bull,  and  in  my  idea  that  would  be  the  greatest  eulo- 
gium  that  could  be  pronounced  upon  this  work  so  commonplace  in 
its  weak  parts,  and  yet  so  conclusive. 

Almost  all  the  pictures  of  Paul  Potter  have  the  same  quality. 
In  most  of  them  he  proposes  to  himself  to  study  some  characteristic 
accident  of  nature,  or  some  new  part  of  his  art,  and  you  can  be  cer- 
tain that  on  that  day  he  succeeded  in  knowing,  and  instantaneously 


PAUL  POTTER.  163 

rendering  what  he  had  learned.  The  Field,  in  the  Louvre,  of  which 
the  principal  object,  the  rusty  gray  ox,  is  the  reproduction  of  a  study 
which  was  often  to  serve  him,  is  also  a  very  weak  or  a  very  strong" 
picture,  according  as  it  is  taken  for  a  page  from  a  master  or  for  a 
magnificent  exercise  by  a  scholar.  The  Field  with  Cattle,  of  the 
Hague  Museum,  Shepherds  and  their  Flock,  and  Orpheus  charm- 
ing the  Animals,  of  the  Amsterdam  Museum,  are,  each  in  its  own 
kind,  an  occasion  of  study,  a  pretext  for  study,  and  not,  as  one  might 
be  tempted  to  believe,  one  of  those  conceptions  in  which  imagi- 
nation plays  the  least  rdle.  They  are  animals  closely  examined, 
grouped  without  much  art,  drawn  in  simple  attitudes,  or  in  diffi- 
cult foreshortening,  never  in  a  very  complicated  or  very  striking 
effect. 

The  labor  is  thin,  hesitating,  sometimes  painful.  The  touch  is  a 
little  infantine.  Paul  Potter's  eye,  of  a  singular  exactness,  and  a 
penetration  that  nothing  wearies,  details,  scrutinizes,  expresses  to 
excess,  never  is  fatigued,  and  never  stops.  Paul  Potter  ignores  the 
art  of  sacrifices,  and  he  has  not  yet  learned  that  things  must  be 
sometimes  understood  and  but  half  expressed.  You  recognize  the  ur- 
gency of  his  brush,  and  the  distracting  embroidery  which  he  employs 
to  render  the  compact  foliage  and  thick  grass  of  the  fields.  His 
talent  as  a  painter  is  the  result  of  his  talent  as  an  engraver.  To  the 
end  of  his  life,  in  his  most  perfect  works,  he  never  ceased  to  paint 
as  one  works  with  a  burin.  The  tool  becomes  more  supple,  and 
lends  itself  to  other  uses,  but  under  the  thickest  paint  one  continues 
to  feel  the  fine  point,  the  sharp-edged  notches,  and  the  biting  touch. 


1 64       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND, 

It  is  only  gradually,  with  effort,  by  a  progressive  and  entirely  personal 
education,  that  he  learns  to  manage  his  palette  like  other  people ;  but 

p 

as  soon  as  he  succeeds  he  is  superior. 

By  choosing  certain  pictures,  of  dates  comprised  between  1647  and 
1652,  the  movement  of  his  mind  can  be  followed,  as  well  as  the  mean- 
ing of  his  studies  and  the  nature  of  his  investigations,  and  nearly 
to  a  moment  the  almost  exclusive  preoccupation  in  which  he  was 
plunged. 

Thus  the  painter  may  be  seen  separating  himself  little  by  little 
from  the  draughtsman,  his  color  becoming  more  decided,  his  pal- 
ette taking  on  a  more  learned  arrangement ;  finally,  chiaroscuro  is 
born  of  itself  in  it,  like  a  discovery  for  which  this  innocent  spirit  is 
indebted  to  no  one. 

The  extensive  menagerie  collected  around  a  charmer  in  doublet 
and  boots,  who  is  playing  the  lute,  and  is  called  Orpheus,  is  the 
ingenious  effort  of  a  young  man  who  is  a  stranger  to  all  the  secrets 
of  his  school,  but  who  is  studying  the  varied  effects  of  half-tint  upon 
the  hair  of  animals.  It  is  weak,  but  learned  ;  the  observation  is  just, 
the  workmanship  timid,  the  design  charming. 

In  the  Field  with  Cattle  the  result  is  still  better ;  the  atmosphere 
is  excellent,  the  method  alone  has  persisted  in  its  infantine  equality. 

The  Cow  Admiring  Herself  is  a  study  of  light,  of  full  light,  made 
about  noon  of  a  summer  day.  It  is  a  very  celebrated  picture,  and, 
believe  me,  extremely  weak,  disconnected,  complicated  with  a  yel- 
lowish light,  which,  although  studied  with  unheard-of  patience,  has 
on  that  account  neither  more  interest  nor  more  truth.  It  is  full 


PAUL  POTTER.  165 

of  uncertainty  in  its  effect,  and  executed  with  an  application  which 
betrays  difficulty.  I  would  omit  this  student's  exercise,  one  of  the 
least  successful  he  has  attempted,  if  even  in  this  unfruitful  effort 
one  did  not  recognize  the  admirable  sincerity  of  a  mind  which  is 
seeking  something,  which  does  not  know  everything,  but  wants  to 
know  everything,  and  becomes  all  the  more  fierce  in  the  pursuit 
because  his  days  are  numbered. 

On  the  other  hand,  without  leaving  the  Louvre  and  the  Nether- 
lands, I  will  mention  two  of  Paul  Potter's  pictures  that  are  by  a  con- 
summate painter,  and  which  are  also  decidedly  works  in  the  highest 
and  rarest  acceptation  of  the  word  ;  and,  what  is  remarkable,  one 
of  them  is  dated  1647,  the  very  year  in  which  he  signed  the  Bull. 

I  mean  the  Little  Inn  at  the  Louvre,  catalogued  under  the  title, 
Horses  at  the  Door  of  a  Cottage,  No.  399.  It  is  an  evening  effect. 
Two  horses  loosened  from  the  vehicle,  but  harnessed,  have  stopped 
before  a  trough  ;  one  is  bay,  the  other  white  ;  the  white  one  is  ex- 
hausted. The  carter  has  just  drawn  water  from  the  river  ;  he  climbs 
the  bank  with  one  arm  lifted,  while  the  other  is  holding  a  bucket, 
and  he  is  relieved  in  soft  outline  against  a  sky  whence  gleams  are 
cast  by  the  setting  sun.  It  is  unique  in  sentiment  and  design,  in 
the  mystery  of  the  effect,  in  the  beauty  of  the  tone,  in  the  delicious 
and  spiritual  intimacy  of  the  work. 

The  other,  painted  in  1653,  the  year  that  preceded  Paul  Potter's 
death,  is  a  wonderful  masterpiece  from  every  point  of  view,  —  ar- 
rangement, picturesque  touches,  acquired  knowledge,  persistent  sim- 
plicity, firmness  of  drawing,  force  in  workmanship,  clearness  of  eye, 


166       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

and  charm  of  hand.  The  d'Aremberg  Gallery,  which  owns  this 
precious  jewel,  contains  nothing  more  valuable.  These  two  incom- 
parable works  prove,  if  they  alone  are  regarded,  what  Paul  Potter 
intended  to  do,  and  what  he  certainly  would  have  done  with  more 
breadth  if  he  had  had  the  time. 

This,  then,  is  what  may  be  said,  that  what  experience  Paul  Potter 
acquired,  he  owed  only  to  himself.  He  learned  from  day  to  day,  — 
every  day ;  let  us  not  forget  that  the  end  came  before  he  had  done 
learning.  As  he  had  no  master  he  had  no  pupils.  His  life  was  too 
short  to  permit  any  teaching.  Moreover,  what  would  he  have 
taught  ?  His  way  of  drawing  ?  That  is  an  art  which  recommends 
itself,  but  which  can  hardly  be  taught.  Arrangement  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  effect  ?  He  was  hardly  sure  of  them  in  his  last  days.  Chiaro- 
scuro ?  It  was  taught  in  all  the  studios  of  Amsterdam  much  better 
than  he  practised  it  himself,  for  it  was  the  one  thing,  as  I  have  said, 
that  the  sight  of  Dutch  fields  had  revealed  to  him  only  after  a  long 
time,  and  very  rarely.  The  art  of  composing  a  palette  ?  It  can  be 
seen  how  much  trouble  it  caused  him  to  become  master  of  his  own. 
And  as  to  practical  skill,  he  was  no  better  able  to  recommend  it 
than  his  works  were  made  to  give  a  proof  of  it. 

Paul  Potter  painted  fine  pictures  which  were  not  all  fine  models  ; 
or  rather  he  gave  good  examples,  and  his  whole  life  was  but  a  piece 
of  excellent  advice. 

More  than  any  painter  of  that  honest  school,  he  spoke  of  simplicity, 
patience,  circumspection,  persevering  love  for  truth.  His  precepts 
were  perhaps  the  only  ones  that  he  had  received,  certainly  they  were 


PAUL  POTTER.  l6/ 

the  only  ones  that  he  could  transmit.  All  his  originality  came  from 
them,  and  his  grandeur  also. 

With  a  lively  taste  for  country  life,  a  soul  very  frank,  tranquil, 
and  unbeset  by  storms,  no  nerves,  a  profound  and  healthy  sensibility, 
an  admirable  eye,  a  feeling  for  proportion,  a  taste  for  things  clearly 
defined  and  well  established,  he  was  learned  in  the  equilibrium  of 
forms,  understanding  the  exact  relation  between  quantities,  and  pos- 
sessing the  instinct  of  anatomy  ;  finally,  he  was  a  constructor  of  the 
first  order  ;  in  everything  he  showed  that  virtue  which  one  of  the 
masters  of  our  day  calls  the  probity  of  talent.  He  had  a  native 
preference  for  drawing,  but  such  an  appetite  for  perfection,  that 
later  he  meant  to  paint  well,  and  had  already  succeeded  in  painting 
excellently ;  he  showed  an  astonishing  division  in  his  labor,  an  im- 
perturbable coolness  in  effort,  and  was  of  an  exquisite  nature,  to 
judge  from  his  sad  and  suffering  countenance,  —  such  was  this 
young  man,  unique  in  his  time,  always  unique  whatever  may  hap- 
pen ;  and  thus  he  appeared  from  his  gropings  till  he  reached  his 
masterpieces. 

How  rare  it  is  to  surprise  a  genius,  sometimes  without  talent ; 
and  what  happiness  to  thus  admire  an  ingenuous  being  who  had 
only  one  good  fortune  at  his  birth,  the  love  of  the  true  and  a  pas- 
sion for  the  best ! 


VI. 

TERBURG,  METZU,  AND  PIETER  DE  HOOGH  AT  THE  LOUVRE. 

WHEN  Holland  has  not  been  visited,  but  the  Louvre  is  well  known, 
is  it  possible  to  form  a  just  idea  of  Dutch  art  ?  Certainly  it  is.  With 
here  and  there  a  rare  hiatus,  —  a  painter  almost  wholly  wanting,  and 
another  whose  best  works  are  not  present  (and  this  list  would  be  a 
short  one),  —  the  Louvre  offers  us,  concerning  the  school  as  a  whole, 
its  spirit,  its  character,  its  perfections,  the  diversity  of  its  styles,  with 
one  exception,  —  the  Corporation  or  Regent  pictures,  —  an  historical 
compendium  nearly  complete,  and  consequently  an  inexhaustible 
fund  of  study. 

Haarlem  possesses  for  its  own  a  painter  whom  we  knew  only  by 
name  before  he  was  revealed  to  us,  quite  recently,  by  a  hearty  and 
very  merited  favor.  This  man  is  Frans  Hals  ;  and  the  tardy  en- 
thusiasm of  which  he  is  the  object  would  hardly  be  understood  out- 
side of  Haarlem  and  Amsterdam. 

Jan  Steen  is  hardly  more  familiar  to  us.  He  is  an  unattrac- 
tive spirit  who  must  be  visited  at  home,  cultivated  near  at  hand, 
with  whom  one  must  converse  often  not  to  be  too  shocked  by  his 
rough  sallies  and  by  his  licenses.  He  is,  however,  less  rash  than  he 


TERBURG,  METZU,  AND  DE  HOOGH  AT  THE  LOUVRE.     169 

seems,  less  coarse  than  one  would  believe ;  very  unequal,  because  he 
paints  at  random,  after  drinking  as  well  as  before.  In  short,  it  is  well 
to  know  the  value  of  Jan  Steen  when  he  is  sober,  and  the  Louvre 
gives  but  a  very  imperfect  idea  of  his  temperance  and  his  great 
talent. 

Van  de  Meer  is  almost  unrepresented  in  France ;  and  as  he  has 
phases  of  observation  strange  even  in  his  own  country,  the  journey 
would  not  be  useless  if  one  desired  to  be  well  informed  upon  this 
individuality  in  Dutch  art.  Apart  from  these  discoveries,  and  several 
others  of  not  much  importance,  there  are  no  very  notable  ones  to  be 
made  outside  of  the  Louvre  and  its  annexes,  —  I  mean  by  that,  certain 
French  collections  which  have  the  value  of  a  museum  in  their  choice- 
ness  of  names  and  in  the  beauty  of  their  specimens.  It  might  be 
said  that  Ruysdael  has  painted  for  France,  so  numerous  are  his 
works  in  that  country,  and  so  evident  is  it  that  he  is  enjoyed  and 
respected.  To  divine  the  native  genius  of  Paul  Potter  or  the  broad 
power  of  Cuyp,  some  effort  of  induction  would  be  necessary,  but  it ' 
might  be  accomplished.  Hobbema  might  have  confined  himself  to 
painting  the  Mill  at  the  Louvre  ;  and  he  would  certainly  gain  if  he 
were  only  known  by  this  masterly  page.  As  to  Metzu,  Terburg,  the 
two  Ostades,  and  especially  Pieter  de  Hoogh,  one  might  well  be  con- 
tent to  see  them  at  Paris,  and  nowhere  else. 

I  have  also  long  believed  —  and  it  is  an  opinion  here  confirmed  — 
that  some  one  of  us  would  render  a  great  service  in  writing  a  Journey 
through  the  Louvre,  or  even  less,  a  Journey  through  the  Salon  Carre", 
or  still  less,  a  simple  Journey  through  several  pictures,  among  which 


I/O       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

would  be  chosen,  I  suppose,  Metzu's  Visit,  Terburg's  Soldier  and 
Young  Woman,  and  Pieter  de  Hoogh's  Dutch  Interior. 

Assuredly  this  would  be,  without  going  very  far,  a  curious  explora- 
tion, and  for  our  day  important  in  instruction.  I  believe  that  an  en- 
lightened critic  who  would  undertake  to  reveal  all  that  these  three 
pictures  contain  would  astonish  us  greatly  by  the  abundance  and  nov- 
elty of  his  observations.  We  should  be  convinced  that  the  most  mod- 
est work  of  art  might  serve  as  a  text  for  a  long  analysis,  that  study  is 
a  labor  rather  in  depth  than  extent,  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  enlarge 
its  boundaries  to  increase  its  penetrating  force,  and  that  very  great 
laws  exist  in  a  very  little  object. 

•  Who  has  ever  defined,  in  its  intimate  character,  the  manner  of 
these  three  painters,  the  best,  the  most  learned  draughtsmen  of  their 
school,  at  least  as  regards  figures  ?  The  German  Foot- Soldier  of 
Terburg,  for  instance,  this  stout  man  in  his  harness,  with  his  cui- 
rass, his  doublet  of  buff,  his  great  sword,  his  funnel-shaped  boots, 
his  felt  hat  thrown  on  the  ground,  his  fat  face  illumined,  ill-shaved, 
and  sweaty,  with  his  sleek  hair,  his  little  moist  eyes,  and  his  large 
hand  dimpled  and  sensual,  offering  some  pieces  of  gold,  the  gesture 
of  which  enlightens  us  sufficiently  upon  the  sentiments  of  this  per- 
sonage and  the  object  of  his  visit,  —  this  figure,  one  of  the  finest 
Dutch  works  that  the  Louvre  owns,  what  do  we  know  about  it  ? 
Certainly  it  has  been  said  that  it  was  lifelike,  that  the  expression 
was  most  true,  and  that  the  painting  was  excellent.  Excellent 
is  not  very  conclusive,  we  must  admit,  when  we  want  to  know 
the  why  and  wherefore  of  things.  Why  excellent?  Is  it  because 


TERBURG,  METZU,  AND  DE  HOOCH  AT  THE  LOUVRE.      1 71 

Nature  is  imitated  in  it  in  such  a  way  that  one  seems  to  surprise  her 
in  the  very  act  ?  Is  it  because  no  detail  is  omitted  ?  Is  it  because  the 
painting  is  smooth,  simple,  clean,  limpid,  charming  to  see,  easy  to 
understand,  and  that  it  is  faulty  neither  from  minuteness  nor  by  negli- 
gence ?  How  does  it  happen  that  since  the  beginning  of  the  practice 
of  painting  figures  costumed  in  their  ordinary  way,  in  a  fixed  attitude, 
and  certainly  posing  before  the  painter,  no  one  has  ever  drawn, 
modelled,  or  painted  like  this  ? 

Where  do  you  perceive  the  drawing,  if  not  in  the  result,  which  is 
quite  extraordinary  in  its  naturalness,  truth,  breadth,  and  reality 
without  excess  ?  Can  you  find  a  feature,  a  contour,  an  accent,  a 
single  mark,  which  denotes  the  rule  or  measure  ?  Those  shoulders, 
diminishing  in  their  perspective  and  curve  ;  that  long  arm,  poised  on 
the  thigh,  so  perfectly  within  its  sleeve ;  that  stout  round  body,  belted 
high,  so  exact  in  its  thickness,  so  vague  in  its  exterior  limits  ;  those 
two  supple  hands,  which,  increased  to  the  natural  size,  would  have 
the  astonishing  appearance  of  being  modelled,  —  do  you  not  find  that 
all  this  is  poured  at  once  into  a  mould  which  does  not  at  all  resemble 
the  angular  accents,  timid  or  presumptuous,  uncertain  or  geometrical, 
in  which  modern  design  is  ordinarily  enclosed  ? 

Our  time  is  rightly  honored  for  possessing  observers  of  merit  who 
draw  strongly,  delicately,  and  well.  I  could  cite  one  who  character- 
istically draws  an  attitude,  a  movement,  a  gesture,  a  hand  with  its 
planes,  its  bones,  its  action  and  contraction,  so  that  for  this  merit 
alone  —  and  he  has  greater  ones  —  he  would  be  incontestably  a  mas- 
ter in  our  present  school.  Compare  his  sharp,  clever,  expressive, 


1/2        THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

energetic  point  to  the  almost  impersonal  drawing  of  Terburg.  In  the 
former  you  perceive  formulas,  a  science  thoroughly  possessed,  an 
acquired  knowledge  that  comes  to  the  aid  of  study,  supports  it,  if 
necessary  could  supply  its  place,  and  which,  so  to  speak,  dictates  to 
the  eye  what  it  should  see  and  to  the  mind  what  it  ought  to  feel. 
In  the  latter  there  is  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  an  art  which  bends 
itself  to  the  character  of  things,  a  knowledge  which  forgets  itself 
before  the  individualities  of  life,  nothing  preconceived,  nothing  which 
takes  precedence  of  the  simple,  powerful,  and  sensitive  observation 
of  what  exists,  so  that  it  might  be  said  that  the  eminent  painter  *  of 
whom  I  speak  has  a  design,  while  it  is  impossible  to  perceive  at  a 
glance  what  is  that  of  Terburg,  Metzu,  or  Pieter  de  Hoogh. 

Go  from  one  to  the  other.  After  having  examined  the  gallant  soldier 
of  Terburg,  pass  on  to  this  thin  personage,  a  trifle  affected  in  his 
gravity,  of  another  society,  and  already  of  another  age,  who  presents 
himself  with  some  ceremony,  standing  and  saluting  like  a  person  of 
quality  this  delicate  woman  with  the  thin  arms  and  nervous  hands, 
who  receives  him  in  her  house  without  thought  of  offence.  Then 
stop  before  the  Interior,  by  Pieter  de  Hoogh  ;  enter  into  this  deep, 
stifled  picture,  so  shut  up,  where  the  light  sifts  through,  where  there 
is  fire,  silence,  a  charming  comfort,  a  lovely  mystery  ;  and  examine 
closely  the  woman  with  the  shining  eyes,  red  lips,  dainty  teeth,  and 
this  great  boy,  a  sort  of  blockhead,  who  makes  you  think  of  Moli^re, 
an  emancipated  son  of  M.  Diaforus,  standing  straight  upon  his  spindle 
legs,  awkward  in  his  fine  stiff  clothes,  quite  unused  to  his  rapier, 

*  Meissonier  (?).  —  TR. 


TERBURG,  METZU,  AND  DE  HOOGH  AT  THE  LOUVRE.     1/3 

maladroit  in  his  false  perpendicular,  occupied  entirely  with  what  he 
is  doing,  so  marvellously  created  that  he  can  never  be  forgotten. 
Here,  too,  is  the  same  hidden  knowledge,  the  same  anonymous  design, 
the  same  incomprehensible  mixture  of  nature  and  art.  Not  a  shade 
of  preconceived  ideas  in  this  expression  of  things  so  ingenuously  sin- 
cere that  the  formula  cannot  be  grasped,  no  "chic"  at  all,  —  which 
means,  in  studio  phrase,  no  bad  habits,  —  no  ignorance  affecting 
knowing  airs,  and  not  one  mania. 

Make  an  attempt  if  you  know  how  to  hold  a  pencil ;  copy  the 
features  of  these  three  figures,  try  to  put  them  in  their  place,  set 
yourself  the  difficult  task  of  making  from  this  indecipherable  picture 
an  extract  which  shall  contain  its  drawing.  Try  to  do  the  same  with 
modern  designers,  and  perhaps,  without  other  information,  you  will 
yourself  discover,  as  you  succeed  with  the  moderns  and  fail  with  the 
old  masters,  that  there  is  a  whole  abyss  of  art  between  them. 

The  same  astonishment  seizes  you  when  the  other  parts  of  this 
model  art  are  studied.  The  color,  the  chiaroscuro,  the  modelling  of 
the  well-filled  surfaces,  the  play  of  the  surrounding  air,  finally,  the 
workmanship,  that  is  to  say,  the  operations  of  the  hand,  —  all  are 
perfection  and  mystery. 

Taking  the  execution  superficially  alone,  do  you  find  that  it  resem- 
bles what  has  been  done  since  ?  and  do  you  think  that  our  way  of 
painting  has  advanced  or  is  behind  that  ?  In  our  days  —  and  should 
I  be  the  one  to  say  it  ?  —  we  have  one  of  two  things :  either  a  man 
paints  with  care,  and  does  not  always  paint  very  well ;  or  he  puts 
more  cleverness  into  it,  and  scarcely  paints  at  all.  The  work  is 


174       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

either  heavy  and  abridged,  clever  and  careless,  sensitive  and  very 
much  shirked,  or  it  is  conscientious,  thoroughly  explained,  rendered 
according  to  the  laws  of  imitation  ;  and  no  one,  not  even  those  who 
practise  it,  would  venture  to  declare  that  this  painting  is  more  perfect 
on  account  of  its  scrupulosity.  Each  one  plies  his  trade  according 
to  his  own  taste,  degree  of  ignorance  or  education,  the  heaviness 
or  subtlety  of  his  nature,  according  to  his  moral  and  physical  com- 
plexion, his  blood,  and  his  nerves.  We  have  execution  that  is  lym- 
phatic, nervous,  robust,  weak,  fiery  or  orderly,  impertinent  or  timid, 
simply  good,  which  is  called  tiresome,  ^or  exclusively  sensitive,  which 
is  called  without  depth.  In  short,  there  are  as  many  styles  and 
formulas  as  there  are  individuals,  as  to  drawing,  color,  and  the  ex- 
pression of  everything  else  by  the  action  of  the  hand. 

There  are  discussions  of  some  vivacity  to  know  which  of  these  so 
diverse  executions  is  correct.  Conscientiously  speaking,  no  one  is 
exactly  wrong,  but  the  facts  testify  that  no  one  is  fully  right. 

The  truth  which  would  harmonize  us  all  remains  to  be  demon- 
strated, and  would  consist  in  establishing  that  painting  is  a  craft 
to  be  learned,  and  consequently  can  be  and  ought  to  be  taught,  —  an 
elementary  method  which  also  can  and  ought  to  be  transmitted  ; 
that  this  craft  and  method  are  as  necessary  in  painting  as  the  art 
of  good  expression  or  good  writing  is  necessary  to  those  who  use 
speech  or  the  pen  ;  that  there  is  no  reason  why  these  elements 
should  not  be  common  to  us  all ;  that  to  pretend  to  be  distinguished 
by  the  garment,  when  in  person  people  are  undistinguished,  is  a  poor 
and  vain  fashion  of  proving  that  one  is  somebody.  Formerly  it  was 


TERBURG,  METZU,  AND  DE  HOOCH  AT  THE  LOUVRE.      175 

quite  the  contrary  ;  and  the  proof  of  it  is  in  the  perfect  unity  of  the 
schools,  where  the  same  family  air  belonged  to  such  distinct  and 
lofty  personalities.  This  family  air  resulted  from  an  education,  sim- 
ple, uniform,  well  understood,  and,  as  can  be  seen,  extremely  salutary. 
Now,  what  was  this  education  of  which  we  have  not  preserved  a 
single  trace? 

This  is  what  I  would  wish  should  be  taught,  and  this  I  have  never 
heard  said  from  the  rostrum,  nor  in  a  book,  nor  in  lectures  on  aes- 
thetics, nor  in  oral  lessons.  It  would  be  one  way  of  professional 
teaching  in  an  epoch  when  almost  all  professional  teachings  are 
given  except  this  particular  one. 

Let  us  not  weary  of  studying  together  these  beautiful  models. 
Look  at  this  flesh,  these  heads,  these  hands,  these  bare  throats  ; 
remark  their  suppleness,  their  amplitude,  their  truth  of  coloring 
almost  without  color,  their  compact  thin  tissue  so  dense  and  yet  so 
little  loaded.  Examine  in  the  same  way  their  appointments,  the 
satins,  furs,  cloths,  velvets,  silks,  felts,  plumes,  swords,  the  gold,  the 
embroideries,  the  carpets,  backgrounds,  beds  with  hangings,  the 
floors  so  perfectly  smooth  and  so  perfectly  solid.  See  how  alike 
all  this  is  in  Terburg  and  Pieter  de  Hoogh,  and  yet  how  everything 
differs,  —  how  the  hand  works  in  the  same  way,  how  the  coloring  has 
the  same  elements,  and  yet  how  the  subject  of  the  latter  is  enveloped, 
receding,  veiled,  profound  ;  how  the  half-tint  transforms,  darkens,  and 
makes  distant  all  the  parts  of  this  admirable  canvas  ;  how  it  gives 
to  objects  their  mystery,  their  spirit,  a  sense  still  more  moving,  a 
warmer  and  more  inviting  intimacy ;  —  while  in  Terburg,  things  pass 


1/6       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

with  less  concealment,  true  daylight  is  everywhere ;  the  bed  is 
hardly  hidden  by  the  sombre  color  of  the  hangings  ;  the  modelling 
is  like  nature,  firm,  full,  shaded  with  simple  tones,  but  slightly  trans- 
formed, only  selected,  so  that  color,  execution,  evidence  of  tone,  evi- 
dence of  fact,  are  all  in  accord  to  express  that  with  such  people  as 
these  there  were  necessary  neither  roundabout  ways,  nor  circum- 
locutions, nor  half-tints.  And  observe  that  in  Pieter  de  Hoogh  as  in 
Metzu,  in  the  most  reserved  as  in  the  most  communicative  of  these 
three  famous  painters,  you  can  always  distinguish  one  part  of  senti- 
ment, which  is  their  own  and  is  their  secret,  and  another  part  of 
method  and  education  received,  which  is  common  to  them  and  is 
the  secret  of  the  school 

Do  you  find  that  they  color  well,  though  one  colors  principally  in 
gray  and  the  other  in  brown  or  dark  gold  ?  and  do  you  not  decide 
that  their  color  has  more  brilliancy  than  ours,  at  the  same  time  that 
it  is  duller  in  hue  ;  that  it  has  more  richness,  though  it  is  more  neu- 
tral ;  that  it  has  far  more  power,  while  containing  much  less  visible 
force  ? 

When  by  chance  you  perceive  in  an  ancient  collection  a  modern 
genre  picture,  even  one  of  the  best,  and  in  every  relation  the  most 
strongly  conceived,  answer  me,  is  it  not  something  like  an  image,  — 
that  is  to  say,  a  painting  which  makes  an  effort  to  be  colored  and  is  not 
sufficiently  so,  to  be  painted  and  yet  is  airy  and  empty,  to  have  con- 
sistency and  yet  does  not  attain  it  always,  either  by  its  heaviness 
when  it  is  thick,  or  by  the  enamel  of  its  surfaces  when  by  chance 
it  is  thin  ?  On  what  does  this  depend  ?  —  for  it  is  enough  to  fill  with 


TERBURG,   METZU,  AND  DE  HOOGH  AT  THE  LOUVRE.     I// 

consternation  the  men  of  instinct,  sense,  and  talent,  who  may  be 
struck  with  these  differences. 

Are  we  much  less  gifted  ?  Perhaps.  Less  faithful  seekers  ?  Quite 
the  contrary.  We  are,  above  all,  less  well  educated. 

Suppose  that  by  a  miracle  which  is  not  sufficiently  prayed  for, 
and  which,  even  if  it  were  implored  as  it  should  be,  will  probably 
not  happen  in  France,  a  Metzu  or  a  Pieter  de  Hoogh  should  be  re- 
suscitated among  us,  what  a  seed  he  would  cast  into  the  studios,  and 
what  rich  and  generous  soil  he  would  find  to  raise  fine  painters  and 
good  works !  Our  ignorance  then  is  extreme.  It  may  be  said  that 
the  art  of  painting  has  for  a  long  time  been  a  lost  secret,  and  that 
the  last  masters  who  were  at  all  expert  in  its  practice  carried  off  the 
key  with  them.  We  want  it ;  it  is  asked  for,  but  no  one  has  it ;  we 
seek  it,  but  it  is  not  to  be  found.  Hence  it  results  that  individuality 
of  method  is,  to  speak  truly,  but  the  effort  of  each  to  imagine  what 
he  has  not  learned  ;  that  in  a  certain  practical  skill  we  feel  the  labo- 
rious expedients  of  a  mind  in  difficulties  ;  and  that  almost  always  the 
so-called  originality  of  modern  processes  conceals  at  bottom  an  in- 
curable uneasiness.  Do  you  want  me  to  give  you  an  idea  of  the 
investigations  of  those  who  are  seeking,  and  the  truths  which  are 
brought  to  light  after  long  efforts  ?  I  will  give  but  one  example. 

Our  picturesque  art,  whether  historical,  genre,  landscape,  or  still-life, 
has  been  for  some  time  complicated  with  a  question  much  in  fashion, 
which  merits  in  fact  our  attention,  for  it  aims  to  restore  to  painting 
one  of  its  most  delicate  and  most  necessary  means  of  expression. 
I  mean  to  speak  of  what  we  have  agreed  to  call  values. 


178      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

By  this  word,  of  rather  vague  origin  and  obscure  meaning,  is 
understood  the  quantity  of  light  or  dark  which  is  found  contained 
in  a  tone.  Expressed  by  drawing  and  engraving,  the  shade  is  easy 
to  seize ;  such  a  black  will  have,  in  relation  to  the  paper  which 
represents  the  unity  of  the  light,  more  value  than  such  a  gray. 
Expressed  by  color  it  is  not  less  positively  an  abstraction,  but  it  is 
less  easy  to  define.  Thanks  to  a  series  of  observations,  of  no  great 
profundity,  and  by  an  analytical  observation  familiar  to  chemists, 
we  separate  from  any  given  color  that  element  of  light  or  dark 
which  is  combined  with  its  coloring  principle,  and  arrive  scientifi- 
cally at  considering  a  tone  under  the  double  aspect  of  color  and 
value,  so  that  in  a  violet,  for  instance,  we  have  not  only  to  estimate 
the  quantity  of  red  or  blue  which  can  multiply  its  shades  infinitely, 
but  to  keep  an  account  also  of  the  quantity  of  light  or  strength 
which  approaches  it  to  the  unit  of  light  or  the  unit  of  dark. 

The  interest  of  the  examination  is  this  :  a  color  does  not  exist  in 
itself,  since  it  is,  as  is  known,  modified  by  the  influence  of  a  neigh- 
boring color.  For  still  better  reasons,  it  has  in  itself  neither  virtue 
nor  beauty.  Its  quality  comes  from  its  surrounding,  or  what  are 
also  called  its  complementary  colors.  Thus  by  contrast  or  by  favor- 
able association  very  diverse  acceptations  may  be  given  to  it.  To 
color  well  —  I  shall  say  this  more  particularly  elsewhere  —  is  either  to 
know  or  to  feel  thoroughly  by  instinct  the  necessity  of  these  asso- 
ciations ;  but  to  color  well  is  especially  and  beyond  all  things  to 
know  how  to  skilfully  bring  into  connection  the  values  of  tones. 
If  you  take  from  a  Veronese,  a  Titian,  or  a  Rubens  this  just  relation 


TERBURG,  METZU,  AND  DE  HOOGH  AT  THE  LOUVRE. 

of  values  in  their  colors,  you  would  have  only  a  discordant  coloring 
without  force,  delicacy,  or  preciousness.  In  proportion  as  the  color- 
ing principle  diminishes  in  a  tone,  the  element  of  values  predomi- 
nates. If  it  happens,  as  in  the  half-tints,  where  all  color  grows  pale, 
or  as  in  the  pictures  of  extravagant  chiaroscuro,  where  all  shading 
vanishes,  like  Rembrandt's  for  instance,  or  sometimes  where  every- 
thing is  monochromatic,  —  if  it  happens,  I  say,  that  the  coloring 
element  disappears  almost  entirely,  there  remains  upon  the  palette 
a  neutral  principle,  subtle  and  yet  real,  the  abstract  value,  it  may 
be  called,  of  the  vanished  things  ;  and  it  is  with  this  negative,  color- 
less principle  of  an  infinite  delicacy  that  the  rarest  pictures  are 
sometimes  made. 

These  things,  terrible  to  announce  in  French,  and  the  explana- 
tion of  which  is  really  only  permissible  in  a  studio  with  closed 
doors,  I  have  been  forced  to  say,  because  without  that  I  should 
not  have  been  understood.  Now,  this  law,  which  we  are  trying  to- 
day to  put  in  practice,  you  must  not  imagine  that  we  have  in- 
vented ;  it  has  been  rediscovered,  among  the  much  forgotten  por- 
tions, in  the  archives  of  the  art  of  painting.  Few  painters  in  France 
have  had  a  very  marked  feeling  for  it.  There  were  whole  schools 
who  never  thought  of  it,  did  without  it,  and  were  none  the  better 
for  that,  as  has  now  been  discovered.  If  I  were  writing  the  history 
of  French  art  in  the  nineteenth  century,  I  would  tell  you  how  this 
law  was  in  turn  observed  and  misunderstood,  what  painter  used  it, 
and  who  ignored  it,  and  you  would  find  no  difficulty  in  agreeing 
that  he  was  wrong  to  ignore  it 


ISO       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

An  eminent  painter,  too  much  admired  for  his  technicalities,  who 
will  live,  if  he  does  live,  by  the  depth  of  his  sentiment,  his  very 
original  impulses,  a  rare  instinct  for  the  picturesque,  and  especially 
by  the  tenacity  of  his  efforts,  Decamps,  never  took  the  trouble  to 
find  out  there  were  values  on  a  palette.  This  is  an  infirmity  which 
begins  to  strike  people  who  are  well  informed,  and  from  which  deli- 
cate spirits  suffer  greatly.  I  will  tell  you,  too,  to  what  sagacious 
observer  contemporaneous  landscape  painters  owe  the  best  lessons 
that  they  have  received,  —  how  by  a  charming  state  of  grace  Corot, 
that  sincere  spirit,  a  simplifier  in  his  essence,  had  a  natural  senti- 
ment for  the  values  in  all  things,  studied  them  better  than  any  one, 
established  their  rules,  formulated  them  in  his  works,  and  day  by 
day  gave  of  them  more  successful  demonstrations. 

Henceforth  this  is  the  principal  care  of  all  who  are  seeking,  from 
those  who  seek  in  silence  to  those  who  seek  most  noisily  and  under 
eccentric  names.  The  so-called  realistic  doctrine  has  no  other 
serious  foundation  than  a  more  healthy  observation  of  the  law  of 
coloring.  We  must  yield  to  evidence,  and  recognize  that  there  is 
something  good  in  these  aims,  and  that  if  the  realists  knew  more 
and  painted  better,  there  are  some  of  them  who  would  paint  ex- 
ceedingly well.  Their  eye  in  general  has  very  just  perceptions, 
their  sensations  are  particularly  delicate,  and,  what  is  singular,  the 
other  parts  of  their  craft  are  no  longer  so  at  all.  They  have  one  of 
the  rarest  faculties,  but  they  lack  what  should  be  the  most  common, 
so  that  their  merits,  which  are  great,  lose  their  worth  by  not  being 
employed  as  they  should  be  ;  they  seem  to  be  revolutionary  because 


TERBURG,  METZU,  AND  DE  HOOGH  AT  THE  LOUVRE.     l8l 

they  affect  to  admit  only  half  of  the  necessary  truths,  and  they 
lack  at  the  same  time  very  little  and  very  much  of  being  perfectly 
right.  All  that  was  the  A  B  C  of  Dutch  art,  and  ought  to  be  the 
A  B  C  of  ours.  I  do  not  know,  doctrinally  speaking,  what  was  the 
opinion  of  Pieter  de  Hoogh,  of  Terburg,  and  of  Metzu  upon  values, 
nor  how  they  called  them,  nor  even  if  they  had  a  name  to  express 
what  colors  should  have  of  shade,  relativeness,  sweetness,  suavity, 
or  subtlety  in  their  relations.  Perhaps  coloring  as  a  whole  allows  all 
these  qualities,  whether  positive  or  impalpable.  But  always  the  life 
of  their  works  and  the  beauty  of  their  art  result  precisely  from 
the  learned  use  of  this  principle. 

The  difference  which  separates  them  from  modern  attempts  is 
this :  in  their  time  great  value  was  attached  to  chiaroscuro,  and 
there  was  a  great  feeling  for  it  only  because  it  appeared  to  be  the 
vital  element  of  all  well-conceived  art.  Without  this  artifice,  in 
which  imagination  plays  the  first  part,  there  was,  so  to  speak,  no 
more  fiction  in  the  reproduction  of  things,  and  hence  the  man  was 
absent  from  his  work,  or  at  least  participated  in  it  no  longer  at 
that  moment  of  the  labor  when  his  sensibility  should  especially 
intervene.  The  delicacy  of  a  Metzu,  the  mystery  of  a  Pieter  de 
Hoogh  result,  as  I  have  told  you,  from  much  atmosphere  around 
the  objects,  much  shadow  around  the  lights,  much  quietness  in  the 
receding  colors,  many  transpositions  of  tones,  many  purely  imaginary 
transformations  in  the  aspect  of  things,  —  in  a  word,  the  most  mar- 
vellous use  that  ever  was  made  of  chiaroscuro,  and  also,  in  other 
terms,  the  most  judicious  application  of  the  law  of  values. 


1 82      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM   AND  HOLLAND. 

To-day  it  is  the  other  way.  Every  value  a  little  rare,  every  color 
delicately  observed,  seems  to  have  for  an  aim  the  abolition  of  chiaro- 
scuro, and  the  suppression  of  the  atmosphere.  What  served  to 
bind  now  serves  to  loosen.  Every  painting  called  original  is  a 
veneering,  a  mosaic.  The  abuse  of  useless  roundness  has  driven 
into  excess  flat  surfaces,  and  bodies  without  thickness.  Modelling 
disappeared  the  very  day  when  the  means  of  expression  seemed 
best,  and  ought  to  have  rendered  it  more  intelligent,  so  that  what 
was  a  progress  among  the  Hollanders  is  for  us  a  step  backward  ; 
and  after  issuing  from  archaic  art,  under  pretext  of  a  new  innova- 
tion, we  return  thither. 

* 

What  shall  be  said  about  that  ?  Who  is  there  to  demonstrate  the 
error  into  which  we  are  falling  ?  Who  shall  give  us  clear  and 
striking  lessons  ?  There  would  be  one  sure  expedient,  —  the  con- 
struction of  a  new  work  which  should  contain  all  the  old  art  with 
the  modern  spirit,  which,  while  belonging  to  the  nineteenth  century 
and  France,  should  resemble  a  Metzu,  feature  by  feature,  and  yet 
never  permit  one  to  see  that  he  had  been  remembered. 


VII. 

RUYSDAEL. 

OF  all  the  Dutch  painters,  Ruysdael  is  the  one  who  most  nobly 
resembles  his  country.  He  has  its  breadth,  its  sadness,  its  rather 
dreary  placidity,  and  its  monotonous  and  tranquil  charm. 

With  vanishing  lines,  a  severe  palette,  in  two  grand  traits  expressly 
belonging  to  its  physiognomy,  —  gray  and  limitless  horizons,  and  a 
gray  heaven  by  which  the  infinite  is  measured,  —  he  has  left  us  of 
Holland  a  portrait  which  I  will  not  call  familiar,  but  intimate,  lovable, 
admirably  faithful,  which  never  grows  old.  By  still  other  claims 
Ruysdael  is,  as  I  fully  believe,  the  most  distinguished  figure  in  the 
school  after  Rembrandt,  and  this  is  no  small  glory  for  a  painter  who 
has  painted  only  so-called  inanimate  landscapes,  and  not  one  living 
being,  at  least  without  the  aid  of  some  one. 

Remember  that,  taking  him  in  detail,  Ruysdael  would  perhaps  be 
inferior  to  many  of  his  compatriots.  In  the  first  place  he  is  not  adroit 
at  a  moment  and  in  a  style  where  address  was  the  current  money 
of  talent ;  and  perhaps  it  was  owing  to  this  lack  of  dexterity  that  he 
owes  the  character  and  the  ordinary  weight  of  his  thought.  Neither 
is  he  precisely  skilful.  He  paints  well,  and  affects  no  singularity 


1 84       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

in  his  craft  What  he  wants  to  say  he  says  clearly  with  truth,  but 
as  if  slowly,  without  hidden  meaning,  vivacity  or  archness.  His 
drawing  has  not  certainly  the  incisive,  sharp  character,  and  the  ec- 
centric accent  belonging  to  certain  pictures  by  Hobbema. 

I  do  not  forget  that  at  the  Louvre,  before  the  Watermill,  the  flood- 
gate of  Hobbema,  —  a  superior  work  which  has  not,  as  I  have  told  you, 
its  equal  in  Holland,  —  it  has  sometimes  happened  that  I  have  cooled 
towards  Ruysdael.  This  Mill  is  so  charming  a  work,  —  it  is  so  pre- 
cise, so  firm  in  its  construction,  so  resolute  in  its  method  from  one  end 
to  the  other ;  of  such  strong,  fine  coloring  ;  its  sky  is  df  so  rare  a  qual- 
ity ;  and  everything  in  it  seems  so  delicately  engraved  before  being 
painted,  and  so  well  painted  over  this  severe  engraving  ;  finally,  to  use 
an  expression  which  will  be  understood  in  the  studios,  it  is  framed 
in  so  piquant  a  fashion,  and  suits  the  gold  so  well,  —  that  sometimes, 
seeing  two  paces  off  the  little  Bush  by  Ruysdael,  and  finding  jt 
yellowish,  woolly,  a  little  round  in  treatment,  I  have  almost  decided 
in  favor  of  Hobbema,  and  thus  nearly  committed  an  error  which 
would  not  have  lasted,  but  which  would  be  unpardonable  if  it  had 
existed  but  for  an  instant. 

Ruysdael  never  knew  how  to  put  a  figure  in  his  pictures,  and  in 
that  respect  the  aptitude  of  Adrian  van  de  Velde  would  be  very 
different  ;  nor  an  animal,  and  in  this  Paul  Potter  would  have  had 
great  advantage  over  him,  as  soon  as  Paul  Potter  succeeded  in  being 
perfect.  He  has  not  the  pale  golden  atmosphere  of  Cuyp,  and  the 
ingenious  habit  of  placing  in  a  bath  of  light,  boats,  towns,  horses,  and 
riders,  all  well  drawn,  as  we  know,  for  Cuyp  is  excellent  in  all  points. 


RUYSDAEL.  185 

His  modelling,  although  most  learned  when  applied  either  to  vegeta- 
tion or  to  aerial  surfaces,  does  not  offer  the  extreme  difficulties  of 
the  human  modelling  of  Terburg  and  Metzu.  However  trained  is 
the  sagacity  of  his  eye,  it  is  less  so  on  account  of  the  subjects  which 
he  treats.  Whatever  may  be  the  value  of  moving  water,  of  a  flying 
cloud,  a  bushy  tree  tormented  by  the  wind,  a  cascade  rolling  between 
rocks,  —  all  these  things,  when  one  thinks  of  the  complicated  character 
of  the  undertakings,  of  the  number  of  the  problems,  and  of  their  sub- 
tlety, are  not  equal  in  difficulty  of  solution  to  the  Inte'rieur  Galant 
of  Terburg,  the  Visit  of  Metzu,  the  Dutch  Interior  of  Pieter  de  Hoogh, 
the  School  and  the  Family  of  Van  Ostade,  that  are  seen  at  the 
Louvre,  or  the  marvellous  Metzu  of  the  Van  der  Hoop  Museum,  at 
Amsterdam.  Ruysdael  shows  no  liveliness,  and  also  in  that  respect 
the  sprightly  masters  of  Holland  make  him  appear  a  little  morose. 

Considered  in  his  normal  habits,  he  is  simple,  serious,  and  robust, 
very  calm  and  grave,  almost  habitually  the  same,  to  such  a  degree 
that  his  merits  end  by  ceasing  to  impress,  they  are  so  sustained  ;  and 
before  this  mask  which  seldom  is  without  a  frown,  before  these  pic- 
tures of  almost  equal  merit,  one  is  sometimes  confounded  by  the 
beauty  of  the  work,  but  rarely  surprised.  Certain  marines  by  Cuyp, 
for  instance  the  Moonlight  in  the  Six  Museum,  are  works  of  sudden 
impulse,  absolutely  unforeseen,  and  make  us  regret  that  there  are 
not  in  Ruysdael  some  outbursts  of  the  same  kind.  Finally,  his  color 
is  monotonous,  strong,  harmonious,  and  not  very  rich.  It  varies  from 
green  to  brown,  and  an  undertone  of  bitumen  is  its  basis.  It  has 
slight  brilliancy,  is  not  always  pleasing,  and  in  its  first  essence  is  not 


1 86       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

of  very  exquisite  quality.  A  painter  of  refined  interiors  would  not 
find  it  difficult  to  reprove  him  for  the  parsimony  of  his  means,  and 
would  judge  his  palette  sometimes  too  limited. 

With  all  that,  in  spite  of  everything,  Ruysdael  is  unique ;  it  is  easy 
to  be  convinced  of  it  at  the  Louvre,  from  his  Gleam  of  Sunshine, 
the  Bush,  the  Tempest,  the  Little  Landscape  (No.  474).  I  except  the 
Forest,  which  was  never  very  beautiful,  and  which  he  compromised 
by  getting  Berghem  to  paint  the  figures. 

At  the  Retrospective  Exhibition  held  for  the  benefit  of  the  in- 
habitants of  Alsace-Lorraine,  it  may  be  said  that  Ruysdael  reigned 
manifestly  supreme,  although  the  exhibition  was  most  rich  in  Dutch 
and  Flemish  masters ;  for  in  it  there  were  specimens  of  Van  Goyen, 
Wynants,  Paul  Potter,  Cuyp,  Van  de  Velde,  Van  der  Neer,  Van  der 
Meer,  Hals,  Teniers,  Bol,  Solomon  Ruysdael,  and  two  priceless 
works  of  Van  der  Heyden.  I  appeal  to  the  memory  of  all  those 
for  whom  that  exhibition  of  excellent  works  was  a  gleam  of  light, 
if  Jacob  Ruysdael  was  not  there  remarked  as  a  master,  and  what 
is  more  estimable  still,  as  a  great  mind.  At  Brussels,  at  Antwerp, 
at  the  Hague,  and  Amsterdam,  the  effect  is  the  same ;  everywhere 
that  Ruysdael  appears,  he  maintains  himself  by  a  manner  of  his  own  ; 
he  is  imposing,  he  impresses  us  with  respect  and  attracts  attention, 
which  warns  us  that  before  us  is  a  man's  soul,  that  this  man  is  of 
grand  race,  and  that  he  always  has  something  important  to  say. 
Such  is  the  sole  cause  of  Ruysdael's  superiority,  and  this  cause 
suffices ;  there  is  in  the  painter  a  man  who  thinks,  and  in  each  one 
of  his  works  a  conception.  As  learned  in  his  way  as  the  most 


RUYSDAEL.  187 

learned  of  his  compatriots,  as  highly  endowed  by  nature,  more 
thoughtful  and  more  feeling,  more  than  any  other  he  adds  to  his  gifts 
an  equilibrium  which  makes  the  unity  of  the  work  and  the  perfection 
of  work.  You  perceive  in  his  pictures  an  air  of  plenitude,  certainty, 
and  profound  peace,  which  is  his  distinctive  characteristic,  and  which 
proves  that  not  for  a  single  moment  has  harmony  ceased  to  reign 
among  his  fine  native  faculties,  his  great  experience,  his  always  lively 
sensibility,  and  ever  present  reflectiveness.  Ruysdael  paints  as  he 
thinks,  healthily,  strongly,  largely.  The  exterior  quality  of  the  labor 
indicates  quite  plainly  the  ordinary  condition  of  his  mind.  There 
is  in  this  sober,  careful,  rather  proud  painting  an  inexpressible,  sad 
haughtiness,  which  is  recognized  from  far,  and  at  hand  captivates 
by  a  charm  of  natural  simplicity  and  noble  familiarity  wholly  his  own. 
A  canvas  by  Ruysdael  is  a  whole,  wherein  are  felt  an  arrangement, 
a  comprehensive  view,  and  a  master-intention,  —  the  determination  to 
paint  once  for  all  one  of  the  features  of  his  country,  perhaps  also 
the  desire  to  fix  the  memory  of  a  moment  of  his  life.  A  solid  founda- 
tion ;  a  need  of  constructing  and  organizing,  of  subordinating  details 
to  the  whole,  color  'to  effect,  interest  in  objects  to  the  plane  that 
they  occupy ;  a  perfect  knowledge  of  natural  and  technical  laws, 
and  with  all  that  a  certain  disdain  for  the  useless,  the  too  agreeable, 
or  the  superfluous ;  great  taste  combined  with  great  good  sense ;  a 
strong  hand  calm  with  the  calmly  beating  heart,  —  such  is  nearly 
what  one  discovers  in  analyzing  a  picture  by  Ruysdael. 

I  do  not  say  that  everything  pales  beside  this  painting  of  medi- 
ocre brilliancy,  of  discreet  coloring,  of  methods  constantly  veiled; 


1 88        THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

but  everything  becomes  disorganized,  unconnected,  and  empty. 
Place  one  of  Ruysdael's  canvases  beside  the  best  landscapes  of  the 
school,  and  you  will  at  once  see  appear,  in  the  neighboring  works, 
gaps,  weaknesses,  digressions,  an  absence  of  design  where  it  is  ne- 
cessary, flashes  of  cleverness  when  none  are  necessary,  ill-disguised 
ignorance,  and  a  fading  away  which  foretells  oblivion.  Beside 
Ruysdael  a  fine  Adrian  van  de  Velde  is  thin,  pretty,  studied,  never 
very  virile  nor  very  mature  ;  a  Willem  van  de  Velde  is  dry,  cold,  and 
thin,  almost  always  well  drawn,  rarely  well  painted,  quickly  observed 
but  little  meditated.  Isaac  van  Ostade  is  too  red,  his  skies  too  in- 
significant. Van  Goyen  is  too  uncertain,  volatile,  airy,  and  woolly  ; 
one  feels  in  him  the  light  and  rapid  trace  of  a  fine  intention  ;  the 
sketch  is  charming ;  the  work  did  not  succeed  because  it  was  not 
substantially  nourished  by  preparatory  studies,  patience,  and  labor. 
Cuyp  himself,  so  strong  and  so  healthy,  suffers  sensibly  from  this 
severe  neighbor.  His  perpetual  gold  has  a  gayety  of  which  one 
tires  beside  the  sombre  and  bluish  verdure  of  his  great  rival,  and 
as  to  that  luxury  of  atmosphere  which  seems  a  reflection  taken  from 
the  South  to  embellish  the  pictures  of  the  North,  one  ceases  to 
believe  in  it  if  he  knows  ever  so  little  the  shores  of  the  Meuse 
and  the  Zuyder  Zee.  It  can  generally  be  remarked  in  Dutch  pic- 
tures—  I  mean  open-air  pictures  —  that  there  is  a  determined  force 
in  the  lights  which  gives  them  much  relief,  and,  in  painters'  language, 
a  particular  authority.  The  sky  plays  the  aerial  part,  —  that  which  is 
colorless,  infinite,  impalpable.  Practically  it  serves  to  measure  the 
powerful  values  of  the  ground,  and  consequently  to  designate  more 


RUYSDAEL.  189 

sharply  and  firmly  the  outline  of  the  subject.  Whether  this  sky  be 
golden,  as  in  Cuyp ;  silver,  as  in  Van  de  Velde  and  Solomon  Ruys- 
dael ;  or  fleecy,  gray,  melting  in  light  washes,  as  in  Isaac  van  Ostade, 
Van  Goyen,  or  Wynants,  —  it  makes  an  opening  in  the  picture,  rarely 
preserves  a  general  value  which  is  its  own,  and  almost  always  fails 
to  have  a  decided  relation  to  the  gold  of  the  frame.  Estimate  the 
strength  of  the  ground,  and  it  is  extreme.  Try  to  estimate  the 
value  of  the  sky,  and  the  sky  will  surprise  you  by  the  exceeding 
light  which  is  its  basis. 

I  could  cite  to  you  certain  pictures  in  which  the  atmosphere  is 
forgotten,  and  some  aerial  backgrounds  that  might  be  repainted  as 
an  afterthought,  without  the  picture,  which  is  otherwise  finished, 
losing  anything  by  the  change.  Many  modern  works  are  in  this 
condition.  It  can  even  be  remarked,  that  with  some  exceptions, 
which  I  do  not  need  to  signalize  if  I  am  well  understood,  our 
modern  school,  as  a  whole,  appears  to  have  adopted  for  principle 
that,  the  atmosphere  being  the  emptiest  and  most  unseizable  part 
of  the  picture,  there  is  no  objection  to  its  being  the  most  colorless 
and  negative. 

Ruysdael  felt  things  differently,  and  fixed  once  for  all  a  very 
different  principle,  both  audacious  and  truthful.  He  considered  the 
immense  vault  which  arches  over  the  country  or  the  sea  as  the  real, 
compact,  and  dense  ceiling  of  his  pictures.  He  curves  it,  unfolds 
it,  measures  it,  determines  its  value  by  its  relation  to  the  acci- 
dents of  light  sown  in  the  terrestrial  horizon  ;  he  shades  its  great 
surfaces,  models  them,  and  executes  them,  in  a  word,  as  a  work  of 


190      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

the  greatest  interest  He  discovers  lines  in  it  which  continue  those 
of  the  subject,  arranges  the  masses  of  color  in  it,  makes  the  light 
descend  from  it,  and  only  puts  it  there  in  case  of  necessity. 

His  great  eye,  well  opened  to  observe  everything  living,  —  that 
eye  accustomed  to  the  height  of  objects  as^well  as  their  extent, — 
travels  constantly  from  the  soil  to  the  zenith,  never  looks  upon  an 
object  without  observing  the  corresponding  point  in  the  atmosphere, 
and  thus,  omitting  nothing,  makes  the  circuit  of  the  round  field  of 
vision.  Far  from  losing  himself  in  analysis,  he  constantly  employs 
synthesis  and  makes  abstracts.  What  nature  disseminates,  he  con- 
centrates into  a  total  of  lines,  colors,  values,  and  effects.  He  frames 
all  that  in  his  thought,  as  he  means  it  to  be  framed  in  the  four 
angles  of  his  canvas.  His  eye  has  the  properties  of  a  camera-obscura ; 
it  reduces,  diminishes  the  light,  and  preserves  things  in  the  exact 
proportion  of  their  forms  and  colors.  A  picture  by  Ruysdael, 
whatever  it  may  be,  —  the  finest  are,  of  course,  the  most  significant, 
—  is  an  entire  painting,  full  and  strong,  in  its  principle  grayish 
above,  brown  or  greenish  below,  which  rests  solidly  with  its  four 
corners  upon  the  shining  flutings  of  the  frame;  it  seems  dark  at  a 
distance,  but  is  penetrated  with  light  when  approached  ;  it  is  beau- 
tiful in  itself,  with  no  vacancy,  with  few  digressions,  like  a  lofty  and 
sustained  thought  which  has  for  language  a  tongue  of  the  most 
powerful  kind. 

I  have  heard  it  said  that  nothing  was  more  difficult  to  copy  than 
a  picture  by  Ruysdael,  and  I  believe  it,  —  just  as  nothing  is  more 
difficult  to  imitate  than  the  manner  of  expression  of  the  great  writers 


RUYSDAEL.  191 

of  our  seventeenth  century  in  France.  Here  we  have  the  same 
turns,  the  same  styles,  something  of  the  same  spirit,  I  had  almost 
said  the  same  genius.  I  do  not  know  why  I  imagine  that  if  Ruys- 
dael  had  not  been  a  Hollander  and  a  Protestant,  he  would  have 
been  a  Port-Royalist. 

You  will  notice  at  the  Hague  and  Amsterdam  two  landscapes 
which  are  the  repetition  of  the  same  subject,  one  large,  the  other 
small.  Is  the  little  canvas  the  study  which  served  for  a  text  for  the 
larger  one  ?  Did  Ruysdael  draw  or  paint  from  nature  ?  Was  he 
inspired,  or  did  he  copy  directly  ?  That  is  his  secret,  as  it  is  of 
most  of  the  Dutch  masters,  except  perhaps  Van  de  Velde,  who  cer- 
tainly painted  out  of  doors,  excelled  in  direct  studies,  and  in  the 
studio  lost  much  of  his  skill,  whatever  people  may  say.  But  it  is 
certain  that  these  two  works  are  charming,  and  demonstrate  what 
I  have  been  saying  about  Ruysdael's  habits.  It  is  a  view  taken 
at  some  distance  from  Amsterdam,  with  the  little  city  of  Haarlem, 
dark  and  bluish,  visible  through  the  trees,  under  the  vast  rolling 
waves  of  a  cloudy  sky,  in  the  rainy  dimness  of  a  low  horizon  ;  in  front, 
for  the  foreground,  is  a  laundry  with  red  roofs,  and  the  bleaching 
linen  spread  out  flat  over  the  fields.  Nothing  could  be  simpler  or 
poorer  than  this  point  of  departure,  but  nothing  either  could  be 
more  true.  This  canvas,  one  foot  eight  inches  high,  ought  to  be 
seen  to  learn,  from  a  master  who  never  feared  to  degrade  himself 
because  he  was  not  a  man  to  stoop,  how  a  subject  can  be  elevated 
when  a  man  is  himself  a  lofty  spirit,  —  to  learn  that  there  is  nothing 
ugly  for  an  eye  which  sees  beauty,  no  littleness  for  a  great  sensi- 


192       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

tiveness,  —  to  learn,  in  a  word,  what  the  art  of  painting  becomes 
when  practised  by  a  noble  mind. 

The  River  View,  in  the  Van  der  Hoop  Museum,  is  the  highest 
expression  of  this  haughty  and  magnificent  manner.  This  picture 
would  be  better  named  the  Windmill,  and  under  this  title  no  one 
would  be  able  to  treat  without  disadvantage  a  subject  which  in  the 
hands  of  Ruysdael  has  found  its  incomparable  typical  expression. 

Briefly,  this  is  the  rendering.  A  part  of  the  Meuse  probably; 
on  the  right,  terraced  ground  with  trees  and  houses,  and  on  the 
summit  the  black  mill  with  wide-spread  arms,  rising  high  in  the 
canvas ;  a  palisade  against  which  the  water  of  the  river  softly  un- 
dulates, —  a  sluggish  water,  soft  and  admirable  ;  a  little  corner  of  a 
vague  horizon,  very  slight  and  very  firm,  very  pale  and  very  dis- 
tinct, on  which  rises  the  white  sail  of  a  boat,  —  a  flat  sail  with  no 
wind  in  its  canvas,  of  a  soft  and  perfectly  exquisite  value.  Above 
it  a  wide  sky  loaded  with  clouds,  with  openings  of  pale  blue,  gray 
clouds  scaling  to  the  top  of  the  canvas,  —  no  light,  so  to  speak,  any- 
where in  this  powerful  tone,  composed  of  dark  browns  and  dark- 
slate  colors,  but  a  single  gleam  in  the  middle  of  the  picture,  which 
comes  from  the  far  distance,  like  a  smile,  to  illumine  the  disk  of  a 
cloud.  It  is  a  great  square  picture,  grave  (we  need  not  fear  to  make 
too  great  use  of  this  word  with  Ruysdael),  of  extreme  sonorousness 
in  the  lowest  register,  and,  as  my  notes  add,  marvellous  in  the  gold. 
In  fact,  I  describe  it  and  insist  upon  it  only  to  arrive  at  this  con- 
clusion,—  beyond  the  value  of  the  details,  the  beauty  of  form,  the 
grandeur  of  expression,  the  intimate  nature  of  its  sentiment,  it 


RUYSDAEL.  193 

is   a  task   singularly  impressive    to  consider  it  as   a  simple  deco- 
ration. 

All  Ruysdael  is  here,  —  his  noble  way  of  working,  little  charm, 
except  by  chance,  a  great  attractiveness,  an  inwardness  which  is 
revealed  little  by  little,  accomplished  science,  very  simple  means. 
Imagine  him  in  conformity  with  his  painting,  try  to  represent  him 
to  yourself  beside  his  picture,  and  if  I  am  not  mistaken  you  will  have 
the  double  and  very  harmonious  image  of  an  austere  dreamer,  of 
warm  heart,  and  laconic  and  taciturn  spirit. 

I  have  read  somewhere,  so  evident  is  it  that  a  poet  reveals  himself 
through  all  the  restraints  of  form  and  in  spite  of  the  conciseness  of 
his  language,  that  his  work  had  the  character  of  an  elegiac  poem  in 
an  infinity  of  songs.  This  is  much  to  say  when  we  think  how  little 
relation  literature  bears  to  this  art,  in  .which  technicalities  have  so 
much  importance,  and  where  matter  has  such  weight  and  value. 

Elegiac  or  not,  but  surely  a  poet,  if  Ruysdael  had  written  instead 
of  painted,  I  think  he  would  have  written  in  prose  instead  of  verse. 
Verse  admits  of  too  much  fancy  and  stratagem,  prose  compels  too 
great  sincerity,  for  this  clear  mind  not  to  have  preferred  its  language 
to  the  other.  As  to  the  depths  of  his  nature,  he  was  a  dreamer,  —  one 
of  those  men  of  whom  there  are  many  in  our  time,  though  they  were 
rare  at  the  epoch  in  which  Ruysdael  was  born,  —  one  of  those  solitary 
ramblers  who  fly  from  towns,  frequent  the  suburbs,  sincerely  love  the 
country,  feel  it  without  emphasis,  relate  it  without  phrasing,  who  are 
made  restless  by  far-off  horizons,  charmed  by  level  expanses,  affected 
by  a  shadow,  and  enchanted  by  a  gleam  of  sunshine. 

13 


194       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

We  imagine  Ruysdael  neither  very  young  nor  very  old  ;  we  do 
not  see  that  he  had  a  period  of  youth,  nor  do  we  feel  in  him  the  en- 
feebling weight  of  advancing  years.  If  we  did  not  know  that  he  died 
before  the  age  of  fifty-two  years,  we  should  imagine  him  between  two 
ages,  as  a  mature  man  or  one  of  precocious  maturity,  very  serious, 
master  of  himself  early,  with  sad  memories,  regrets,  and  the  reveries 
of  a  mind  which  looks  back,  whose  youth  has  not  known  the  over- 
whelming unrest  of  hope.  I  believe  he  had  no  heart  to  cry,  "  Rise  ! 
longed-for  storms !  "  His  melancholy,  of  which  he  is  full,  has  some- 
thing manly  and  reasonable,  in  which  appears  neither  the  tumultuous 
childishness  of  early  years  nor  the  nervous  tearfulness  of  later  ones  ; 
it  only  tinges  his  painting  with  a  sombre  hue,  as  it  would  have  tinged 
the  thought  of  a  Jansenist. 

What  has  life  done  for  him  that  he  should  have  for  it  a  sentiment 
so  bitter  and  disdainful  ?  What  have  men  done  to  him  that  he 
should  retire  into  deep  solitude,  and  so  avoid  meeting  them,  even 
in  his  painting  ?  Nothing  or  almost  nothing  is  known  of  his  exist- 
ence except  that  he  was  born  about  1630,  that  he  died  in  1681  ; 
that  he  was  the  friend  of  Berghem  ;  that  he  had  Solomon  Ruysdael 
for  an  elder  brother,  and  probably  for  his  first  adviser.  As  to  his 
journeys,  they  are  supposed  and  they  are  doubted ;  his  cascades, 
mountain  regions  well  wooded,  with  rocky  declivities,  would  lead 
one  to  believe  either  that  he  must  have  studied  in  Germany,  Swit- 
zerland, or  Norway,  or  that  he  utilized  the  studies  of  Everdingen,* 
and  was  inspired  by  them.  His  great  labor  did  not  enrich  him,  and 

*  A  fine  painter  of  Norwegian  scenery.    Alkmaar,  1621-1675. 


RUYSDAEL.  195 

his  title  of  burgher  of  Haarlem  did  not  prevent  him,  it  appears,  from 
being  almost  forgotten. 

Of  this  we  should  have  a  truly  harrowing  proof,  if  it  is  true  that, 
in  commiseration  of  his  distress,  more  than  from  respect  to  his  genius, 
which  was  hardly  suspected  by  any  one,  they  were  obliged  to  admit 
him  to  the  hospital  at  Haarlem,  His  native  town,  and  that  there  he 
died.  But  before  reaching  this  point  what  happened  to  him  ?  Had 
he  joys  as  he  certainly  had  bitterness  ?  Did  his  destiny  give  him 
an  opportunity  to  love  anything  but  clouds  ;  and  from  what  did  he 
suffer  most,  if  he  did  suffer,  —  from  the  torment  of  painting  well  or  of 
living  ?  All  these  questions  remain  without  answer,  and  yet  pos- 
terity would  be  glad  to  know. 

Would  you  ever  think  of  asking  as  much  about  Berghem,  Karel 
Dujardin,  Wouvermans,  Goyen,  Terburg,  Metzu,  Pieter  de  Hoogh 
himself?  All  these  brilliant  or  charming  painters  painted,  and  it 
seems  as  if  that  was  enough.  Ruysdael  painted  ;  but  he  lived,  and 
this  is  why  it  would  be  of  so  much  importance  to  know  how  he 
lived.  In  the  Dutch  School  I  know  but  three  or  four  men  whose 
personality  is  thus  interesting,  —  Rembrandt,  Ruysdael,  Paul  Potter, 
perhaps  Cuyp,  —  and  this  is  already  more  than  is  necessary  to  class 
them. 


VIII. 

CUYP. 

CUYP  also  was  not  much  recognized  during  his  life,  which  did  not 
prevent  him  from  painting  as  he  understood  the  business,  applying 
himself  or  being  negligent  quite  at  his  ease,  and  following  his  free 
career  according  to  the  inspiration  of  the  moment.  Besides,  he 
shared  this  disfavor,  natural  enough  when  one  thinks  of  the  taste 
which  reigned  at  that  time  for  extreme  finish,  with  Ruysdael ;  he 
shared  it  even  with  Rembrandt,  when  about  1650  Rembrandt  sud- 
denly ceased  to  be  understood.  He  was,  as  may  be  seen,  in  good 
company.  Since  then  he  has  been  avenged,  first  by  the  English, 
afterwards  by  all  Europe.  In  any  case,  Cuyp  is  a  very  beautiful 
painter. 

In  the  first  place,  he  has  the  merit  of  universality.  His  work  is 
so  complete  a  repertory  of  Dutch  life,  especially  in  its  rural  surround- 
ings, that  its  extent  and  variety  would  suffice  to  give  it  considerable 
interest.  Landscapes,  marines,  horses,  cattle,  people  of  every  con- 
dition, from  men  of  fortune  and  leisure  to  shepherds,  small  and  large 
figures,  portraits,  and  pictures  of  poultry  yards,  —  such  are  the  curi- 
osities and  aptitudes  of  his  talent  that  he  more  than  any  other  has 


CUYP.  197 

contributed  to  enlarge  the  list  of  local  observations  in  which  the  art 
of  his  country  was  displayed.  Born,  one  of  the  first  in  1605,  belong- 
ing to  his  age  in  every  respect,  —  by  the  diversity  of  his  investiga- 
tions, by  the  vigor  and  independence  of  his  way  of  proceeding,  —  he 
must  have  been  one  of  the  most  active  promoters  of  the  school. 

A  painter  who  on  one  side  touches  Hondekoeter,  and  on  the  other 
Ferdinand  Bol,  and  who  without  imitating  Rembrandt  paints  animals 
as  easily  as  Van  de  Velde,  skies  better  than  Both,  horses,  and  great 
horses,  more  severely  than  Wouvermans  or  Berghem  painted  their 
little  ones  ;  who  feels  the  sea  keenly,  as  well  as  rivers  and  their  banks  ; 
who  paints  cities,  boats  at  anchor,  and  great  maritime  scenes,  with  a 
breadth  and  authority  that  William  Van  de  Velde  did  not  possess,  — 
a  painter  who,  moreover,  had  a  manner  of  his  own  of  seeing,  an  ap- 
propriate and  very  beautiful  coloring,  an  easy,  powerful  hand,  a  taste 
for  rich,  thick,  abundant  stuffs,  —  a  man  who  expands,  grows,  renews 
himself,  and  is  fortified  by  age,  —  such  a  person  is  a  very  great  man. 
If  it  is  remembered,  beside,  that  he  lived  until  1691  ;  that  he  thus 
survived  the  greater  part  of  those  whom  he  had  seen  born  ;  and  that 
during  that  long  career  of  eighty-six  years,  with  the  exception  of  a 
trace  of  his  father  very  strongly  marked  in  his  works,  and  afterwards 
a  reflection  of  the  Italian  sky  which  came  to  him  perhaps  from  the 
Boths  and  his  friends  the  travellers,  he  remains  himself,  without  alloy, 
without  admixture,  moreover  without  signs  of  weakness,  —  we  must 
admit  that  he  had  a  very  powerful  brain. 

If  our  Louvre  gives  a  tolerably  complete  idea  of  the  diverse  forms 
of  his  talent,  his  manner,  and  his  coloring,  it  does  not  give  his  full 


198      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

measure,  and  does  not  mark  the  point  of  perfection  that  he  could 
attain,  and  which  he  sometimes  did  attain. 

His  great  landscape  is  a  beautiful  work,  which  is  more  valuable  as  a 
whole  than  in  its  details.  No  one  could  go  farther  in  the  art  of  paint- 
ing light,  of  rendering  the  pleasing  and  restful  sensations  with  which 
a  warm  atmosphere  envelops  and  penetrates  one.  It  is  a  picture. 
It  is  true  without  being  too  true  ;  it  shows  observation  without  being 
a  copy.  The  air  that  bathes  it,  the  amber  warmth  with  which  it  is 
soaked,  that  gold  which  is  but  a  veil,  those  colors  which  are  only 
the  result  of  the  light  which  inundates  them,  of  the  air  which  circu- 
lates around,  and  of  the  sentiment  of  the  painter  which  transforms 
them,  those  values  so  tender  in  a  whole  which  is  so  strong,  —  all 
these  things  come  both  from  nature  and  from  a  conception  ;  it  would 
be  a  masterpiece  if  there  had  not  slipped  into  it  some  insufficiencies 
which  seem  the  work  of  a  young  man  or  of  an  absent-minded 
designer. 

His  Depart  pour  la  Promenade,  and  the  Promenade,  two  equestrian 
pictures  of  beautiful  form  and  noble  workmanship,  are  also  full  of 
his  finest  qualities,  —  all  bathed  in  sunlight,  and  steeped  in  those 
golden  waves  which  are,  as  it  were,  the  ordinary  color  of  his  mind. 

However,  he  has  done  better,  and  we  are  indebted  to  him  for  even 
rarer  things.  I  do  not  speak  of  those  little  pictures,  too  much 
boasted  of,  which  have  been  shown  at  different  times  in  our  French 
Retrospective  exhibitions.  Without  leaving  France,  there  may  have 
been  seen,  in  sales  of  private  collections,  works  of  Cuyp,  not  more 
delicate,  but  more  powerful  and  profound.  A  true,  fine  Cuyp  is  a 


CUYP.  199 

painting  at  once  subtile  and  gross,  tender  and  robust,  aerial  and 
massive.  That  which  belongs  to  the  impalpable,  as  the  background, 
the  surroundings,  the  shadows,  the  effect  of  the  air  upon  the  dis- 
tances, and  broad  daylight  upon  the  colors,  all  corresponds  to  the 
lighter  parts  of  his  mind  ;  and  to  render  it  his  palette  becomes 
volatile,  and  his  art  grows  supple.  As  to  the  objects  of  more  solid 
substance,  of  more  defined  contours,  of  more  evident  and  consistent 
color,  he  does  not  fear  to  enlarge  planes,  to  fill  out  forms,  to  insist 
upon  robust  features,  and  to  be  a  little  heavy,  in  order  never  to  be 
weak  in  touch,  tone,  or  execution.  In  such  a  case  he  is  no  longer 
refined,  and,  like  all  the  good  masters  at  the  beginning  of  strong 
schools,  it  costs  him  nothing  to  be  wanting  in  charm  when  the  charm 
is  not  the  essential  character  of  the  object  he  represents.  This  is 
why  the  Cavalcades  at  the  Louvre  are  not,  to  my  idea,  the  highest 
expression  of  his  fine  sober  manner,  —  a  little  gross  and  abundant, 
but  wholly  masculine.  There  is  in  them  an  excess  of  gilding,  of 
sun,  and  of  all  that  follows,  —  redness,  gleams,  reflections,  shadows 
cast.  Add  to  these  an  inexpressible  mingling  of  open  air  and  studio 
light,  of  textual  truth  and  of  combinations,  finally,  something  improb- 
able in  the  costumes  and  suspicious  in  the  elegance,  and  it  results 
that  in  spite  of  exceptional  merits  these  two  pictures  are  not  abso- 
lutely satisfactory. 

The  Hague  Museum  has  a  Portrait  of  the  Sire  de  Roover,  directing 
the  salmon-fishing  in  the  neighborhood  of  Dordrecht,  which  repro- 
duces with  less  brilliancy  and  still  more  manifest  defects  the  manner- 
ism of  the  two  celebrated  pictures  of  which  I  speak  The  figure 


200       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

is  one  of  those  we  know.  He  is  in  a  deep  scarlet  gown  embroidered 
with  gold,  bordered  with  fur,  wearing  a  black  cap  with  red  plumes, 
and  a  short  sword  with  a  gilded  handle.  He  bestrides  one  of  those 
great  brown  bay  horses,  whose  arching  head,  rather  heavy  body, 
stiff  legs,  and  mule  hoofs  we  know  of  old.  There  is  the  same  golden 
tint  in  the  sky,  in  the  background,  on  the  waters,  on  the  faces ;  the 
same  too  distinct  reflections,  that  are  seen  in  a  vivid  light  when  the 
atmosphere  modifies  neither  the  color  nor  the  exterior  edge  of  objects. 
The  picture  is  simple  and  well  set,  ingeniously  planned,  original,  per- 
sonal, full  of  conviction  ;  but,  from  the  force  of  truth,  the  excess  of 
light  makes  one  believe  in  errors  of  knowledge  and  taste. 

Now  see  Cuyp  at  Amsterdam  in  the  Six  Museum,  and  consult 
the  two  great  canvases  which  figure  in  this  unique  collection. 

One  represents  the  Arrival  of  Maurice  of  Nassau  at  Scheveningen. 
It  is  an  important  marine  work  with  boats  loaded  with  figures. 
Neither  Backhuysen,  do  I  need  to  say  ?  nor  Van  de  Velde,  nor  any 
one,  would  have  had  the  power  to  construct,  conceive,  or  color  in  this 
way  a  showy  picture  of  this  kind  and  of  such  insignificance.  The 
first  boat,  on  the  left,  opposite  the  light,  is  an  admirable  bit. 

As  to  the  second  picture,  the  very  famous  effect  of  moonlight  on 
the  sea,  I  copy  from  my  notes  the  succinctly  formulated  trace  of  the 
surprise  and  pleasure  that  it  caused  me.  "  A  wonder  and  a  marvel ; 
large,  square  ;  the  sea,  a  rugged  coast,  a  boat  on  the  right,  in  front 
a  fishing-boat  with  a  figure  spotted  with  red,  on  the  left  two  sail-boats, 
no  wind,  a  tranquil  serene  night,  the  water  quite  calm,  the  full  moon 
half-way  up  the  picture  a  little  to  the  left,  absolutely  clear  in  a  large 


CUYP.  201 

opening  of  cloudless  sky ;  the  whole  incomparably  true  and  fine  in 
color,  force,  transparency,  and  limpidity.  A  night  Claude  Lorraine, 
graver,  simpler,  fuller,  more  naturally  executed  from  a  true  sensation, 
a  veritable  deceit  of  the  eye  (trompe  r<ztf)  by  the  most  cultivated  art. 

As  may  be  seen,  Cuyp  succeeds  in  each  new  enterprise ;  and  if  one 
undertook  to  follow  him,  I  do  not  say  in  his  variations,  but  in  the 
variety  of  his  attempts,  it  would  be  perceived  that  in  every  kind  of 
art  he  has  excelled  at  times,  if  only  for  once,  all  those  of  his  con- 
temporaries who  shared  around  him  the  so  singularly  extended  do- 
main of  his  art.  It  would  have  needed  great  lack  of  comprehension, 
or  very  little  self-knowledge,  to  paint  after  him  a  Moonlight,  a  Dis- 
embarkation of  a  Prince  in  grand  naval  array,  or  Dordrecht  and  its 
Environs.  What  he  has  said  is  said,  because  he  has  expressed  it  in 
his  own  manner,  and  his  manner  upon  a  given  subject  is  worth  all 
the  others.  He  has  the  method  of  a  master,  and  a  master's  eye.  He 
has  created — and  that  suffices  in  art — a  wholly  personal,  fictitious  for- 
mula of  light  and  its  effects.  He  has  had  the  very  uncommon  power 
of  imagining,  first,  an  atmosphere,  and  then  making  of  it  not  only 
the  flying,  fluid  element  that  can  be  breathed,  but  the  law,  and,  as 
it  were,  the  regulating  principle  of  his  pictures.  It  is  by  this  sign 
that  he  is  recognizable.  If  it  is  not  perceived  that  he  has  influenced 
his  school,  with  still  more  reason  one  can  be  assured  that  he 
has  undergone  the  influence  of  no  one.  He  is  alone ;  various,  but 
himself. 

However,  —  for,  according  to  my  idea,  there  is  an  however  with 
this  fine  painter,  —  he  is  wanting  in  that  something  which  makes 


202      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

the  indispensable  masters.  He  has  practised  all  kinds  of  art  in  a 
superior  manner,  but  he  has  created  neither  a  kind  nor  an  art ;  he 
does  not  personify  in  his  name  a  complete  way  of  seeing,  feeling,  and 
painting,  —  as  we  say,  "  It  is  like  Rembrandt,  Paul  Potter,  Ruys- 
dael."  He  reaches  a  very  high  rank,  but  certainly  in  the  fourth  line, 
in  that  just  classing  of  talents  where  Rembrandt  is  throned  apart, 
where  Ruysdael  is  first.  If  Cuyp  were  absent,  the  Dutch  School 
would  lose  superb  works,  but  perhaps  there  would  be  no  great  void 
to  fill  in  the  inventions  of  the  art  of  Holland. 


IX. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  HOLLAND  UPON  FRENCH  LANDSCAPE. 

ONE  question  presents  itself,  among  many  others,  when  Dutch 
landscape  is  studied,  and  the  corresponding  movement  that  took 
place  in  France  about  forty-five  years  ago  is  remembered.  One 
asks  himself,  what  was  the  influence  of  Holland  upon  this  novelty ; 
if  it  acted  upon  us,  how,  in  what  measure,  and  at  what  moment; 
what  it  could  teach  us  ;  finally,  for  what  reason,  without  ceasing  to 
please,  it  has  ceased  to  instruct  us.  This  very  interesting  question 
never  has  been,  so  far  as  I  know,  studied  to  the  purpose,  and  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  treat  it.  It  touches  matters  too  near  us,  our  contem- 
poraries, living  artists.  It  may  easily  be  understood  that  I  should 
not  be  at  my  ease ;  but  I  would  like  simply  to  express  its  terms. 

It  is  clear  that  for  two  centuries  we  had  in  France  but  one 
landscape  painter,  Claude  Lorraine.  This  very  great  painter  —  very 
French,  though  very  Roman ;  a  true  poet,  but  with  much  of  that 
clear  good  sense  which  for  a  long  time  has  produced  doubts  as  to 
whether  we  were  a  race  of  poets ;  good-natured  enough  at  bottom, 
though  solemn  —  is,  with  more  naturalness  and  less  purpose,  the  match, 
in  his  style,  to  Poussin  in  historical  painting.  His  painting  is  an 


204       THE   OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

art  which  marvellously  well  represents  the  value  of  our  mind,  the 
aptitudes  of  our  eye ;  it  does  us  honor,  and  will  one  day  become 
one  of  the  classic  arts.  It  is  consulted,  admired,  but  not  used ;  we 
especially  do  not  confine  ourselves  to  it,  nor  return  to  it,  any  more 
than  we  return  to  the  art  of  Esther  and  BMnice. 

The  eighteenth  century  occupied  itself  very  little  with  landscape, 
except  to  introduce  into  it  gallantries,  masquerades,  festivals,  so- 
called  rural  or  amusing  mythologies.  The  whole  school  of  David 
visibly  disdained  it,  and  neither  Valenciennes,*  nor  Bertin,f  nor 
their  successors  in  our  time,  were  of  a  humor  to  make  it  attractive. 
They  sincerely  adored  Virgil,  and  also  nature  ;  but  in  truth  it  may  be 
said  that  they  had  a  delicate  sense  of  neither  one  nor  the  other. 
They  were  Latin  scholars  who  nobly  scanned  hexameters,  painters 
who  saw  things  in  an  amphitheatre,  rounded  a  tree  pompously,  and 
gave  the  detail  of  a  leaf.  At  bottom  they  perhaps  enjoyed  Delille  \ 
better  than  Virgil,  made  some  good  studies,  and  painted  badly. 
With  much  more  mind  than  they,  with  fancy  and  real  gifts,  the 
elder  Vernet,  §  whom  I  had  nearly  forgotten,  is  not  what  I  should 
call  a  very  penetrating  landscape  painter,  and  I  will  class  him,  before 
Hubert  Robert,  ||  but  with  him,  among  the  good  decorators  of  mu- 

*  A  French  landscape  painter,  pupil  of  Doyen.    Toulouse,  1750-1819.  —  TR. 

t  The  painter  employed  by  Louis  XIV.  at  the  Trianon.  Member  of  the  Academy  at 
Paris,  1667-1736.  —  TR. 

\  Jacques  Delille,  a  didactic  poet,  member  of  the  French  Academy,  1738-1813,  who 
enjoyed  an  immense  reputation  at  the  end  of  the  last  century,  and  under  the  Empire.  —  TR. 

§  Claude  Joseph  Vernet,  an  eminent  French  marine  painter,  1714-1789.  He  was 
commissioned  by  Louis  XV.  to  paint  the  seaports  of  France,  and  fifteen  of  these  pictures 
are  now  in  the  Louvre.  He  was  the  grandfather  of  Horace  Vernet.  —  TR. 

||  Hubert  Robert,  architectural  and  landscape  painter.     Paris,  1733-1808.  —  TR. 


INFLUENCE   OF  HOLLAND   UPON  FRENCH  LANDSCAPE.    2O$ 

seums  and  royal  vestibules.  I  do  not  speak  of  Demarne,*  half 
Frenchman,  half  Fleming,  about  whom  Belgium  and  France  have 
no  desire  to  warmly  dispute ;  and  I  think  I  could  omit  Lantara  f 
without  great  harm  to  French  painting. 

It  was  necessary  for  the  school  of  David  to  be  at  the  end  of  its 
credit,  for  everything  to  have  run  short,  and  for  people  to  be  ready 
to  reverse  everything  as  a  nation  does  when  it  changes  its  taste,  in 
order  to  see  appear  at  the  same  time,  in  letters  and  the  arts,  a  sin- 
cere passion  for  rural  things. 

The  awakening  began  with  the  prose  writers  ;  from  1816  to  1825 
it  passed  into  verse  ;  finally,  from  1824  to  1830,  the  painters  became 
aware  of  it  and  began  to  follow.  The  first  impulse  came  to  us  from 
English  painting,  and  consequently,  when  Ge"ricault  and  Bonington 
acclimated  in  France  the  painting  of  Constable  and  Gainsborough, 
it  was  at  first  an  Anglo-Flemish  influence  that  prevailed.  The 
coloring  of  Vandyck  in  the  backgrounds  of  portraits,  the  audacity 
and  the  fantastic  palette  of  Rubens,  are  what  served  to  release  us 
from  the  coldness  and  conventionalities  of  the  preceding  school. 
The  palette  gained  much  thereby,  poetry  lost  nothing,  but  truth 
was  but  half  satisfied  with  the  result. 

Remark  that  at  the  same  time,  in  consequence  of  a  love  of  the 
marvellous  which  corresponded  to  the  literary  fashion  of  ballads  and 
legends,  and  to  the  rather  rosy  color  of  the  imaginations  of  those 


*  J.  L.  Demarne,  a  Flemish  painter,  pupil  of  Nicasius.     Brussels,  1752;  Paris,  1829. 
t  Simon  Mathurin  Lantara,  a  celebrated  landscape  painter,  born  near  Montargis,  1745; 
died  1778.     He  excelled  in  moonlights  and  sunsets. 


206      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

days,  the  first  Hollander  who  whispered  in  the  ear  of  the  painters 
was  Rembrandt.  In  a  visible  state  or  in  a  latent  state,  a  little  of 
the  Rembrandt  of  warm  mists  is  everywhere,  at  the  beginning  of 
our  modern  school ;  and  it  is  precisely  because  Rubens  and  Rem- 
brandt were  vaguely  felt  to  be  hidden  behind  the  scenes,  that  what 
was  called  the  Romantic  School  was  received  with  doubtful  enthu- 
siasm when  it  came  upon  the  stage. 

About  1828  there  was  a  new  life.  Some  very  young  men —  there 
were  even  children  among  them  —  exhibited  one  day  some  very  small 
pictures  that  were  at  once  found  eccentric  and  charming.  Of  those 
eminent  painters  I  will  name  only  two  who  are  dead  ;  or  rather  I 
will  name  them  all,  saving  my  right  to  speak  only  of  those  who  can 
no  longer  hear  me.  The  masters  of  French  contemporary  landscape 
presented  themselves  together;  they  were  Messieurs  Flers,  Cabat, 
Dupr6,  Rousseau, .  and  Corot 

Where  were  they  formed  ?  Whence  did  they  come  ?  What  drove 
them  to  the  Louvre  rather  than  elsewhere?  Who  led  them,  some 
to  Italy,  and  others  to  Normandy  ?  One  might  really  think,  so  un- 
certain is  their  origin,  their  talents  being  to  all  appearance  fortuitous, 
that  we  find  in  them  the  painters  who  disappeared  two  centuries 
before,  whose  history  has  never  been  well  known. 

However  it  may  be  with  the  education  of  those  children  of  Paris, 
born  upon  the  quays  of  the  Seine,  formed  in  the  suburbs,  learning 
one  can  hardly  say  how  ;  two  things  appeared  at  the  same  time  in 
them, — landscapes  simply  and  truly  rustic,  and  Dutch  formulas.  This 
time  Holland  found  the  right  hearers  ;  she  taught  us  to  see,  to  feel, 


INFLUENCE  OF  HOLLAND   UPON  FRENCH  LANDSCAPE.    207 

and  to  paint.  Such  was  the  surprise,  that  the  intimate  originality 
of  the  discoveries  was  not  too  closely  examined.  The  invention 
seemed  as  new  in  all  points  as  fortunate.  People  admired ;  and  the 
same  day  Ruysdael  entered  France,  a  little  hidden  for  the  time 
being  behind  the  glory  of  these  young  men.  At  the  same  moment 
it  was  discovered  that  there  was  a  French  country,  a  French  landscape 
art,  and  museums  with  old  pictures  that  could  teach  us  something. 

Two  of  the  men  of  whom  I  speak  remained  nearly  faithful  to  their 
first  affections,  or  if  they  wandered  from  them  for  a  moment,  it 
was  but  to  return  at  last.  Corot  detached  himself  from  them  from 
the  beginning.  The  road  he  followed  is  known.  He  cultivated 
Italy  early,  and  brought  back  from  it  something  that  was  indelible. 
He  was  more  lyrical,  equally  rural,  less  rustic.  He  loved  woods  and 
waters,  but  differently.  He  invented  a  style  ;  he  employed  less  ex- 
actitude in  seeing  things  than  subtlety  in  seizing  what  he  could 
extract  from  them,  and  what  might  be  separated  from  them.  Hence 
his  quite  individual  mythology  and  his  paganism  so  ingeniously  nat- 
ural, which  was  in  its  rather  vapory  form  only  the  personification  of 
the  very  spirit  of  things.  Nothing  can  be  less  Dutch. 

As  to  Rousseau,  a  complex  artist,  much  reviled  and  much  re- 
nowned, very  difficult  to  be  defined  with  propriety,  the  most  truth- 
ful thing  that  can  be  said  is  that  he  represents,  in  his  beautiful 
and  exemplary  career,  the  efforts  of  the  French  mind  to  create  in 
France  a  new  Dutch  art ;  I  mean  an  art  as  perfect  while  being 
national,  as  precise  while  more  various,  and  as  dogmatic  while  more 
modern. 


208       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

From  his  date  and  his  rank  in  the  history  of  our  school,  Rous- 
seau is  an  intermediary  man,  a  transition  between  Holland  and  the 
painters  to  come.  He  derives  something  from  the  Dutch  painters, 
and  separates  from  them.  He  admires  them,  and  forgets  them.  In 
the  past  he  gives  them  one  hand,  but  with  the  other  he  excites  and 
calls  to  himself  a  whole  current  of  ardor  and  good-will.  In  nature 
he  discovers  a  thousand  unwritten  things.  The  repertory  of  his 
sensations  is  immense.  Every  season,  every  hour  of  the  day,  the 
evening  and  the  dawn ;  all  the  varieties  of  weather,  from  the  winter 
frosts  to  the  dog-day  heats ;  every  altitude,  from  the  beaches  to  the 
hills,  from  the  plains  to  Mont  Blanc ;  villages,  fields,  copses,  forests, 
the  naked  land  and  all  its  cover  of  foliage, — there  is  nothing  which 
has  not  tempted  him,  arrested  him,  convinced  him  of  its  interest, 
persuaded  him  to  paint  it.  It  might  be  said  that  the  Dutch  painters 
had  only  revolved  around  themselves,  when  they  are  compared  to 
the  ardent  explorations  of  this  seeker  of  new  impressions.  All  of 
them  could  have  had  their  careers,  with  an  abridgment  of  the  draw- 
ings of  Rousseau.  In  this  point  of  view  he  is  absolutely  original, 
and  in  that  very  thing  he  belongs  to  his  own  time.  Once  plunged 
into  the  study  of  the  relative,  the  accidental,  and  the  true,  one  must 
go  to  the  very  end.  Not  wholly,  but  almost  entirely  alone,  he  con- 
tributed to  create  a  school  that  might  be  called  the  School  of  Sen- 
sations. 

If  I  were  studying  intimately  our  school  of  contemporary  land- 
scape, instead  of  sketching  some  of  its  wholly  characteristic  traits, 
I  should  have  other  names  to  join  to  the  preceding.  In  this,  as 


INFLUENCE  OF  HOLLAND   UPON  FRENCH  LANDSCAPE.    209 

in  all  schools,  would  be  seen  contradictions,  countercurrents,  aca- 
demic traditions,  which  continue  to  filter  through  the  vast  movement 
which  is  leading  us  to  the  truly  natural ;  the  memories  of  Poussin, 
the  influences  of  Claude,  the  Spirit  of  Synthesis  pursuing  its  work 
among  the  multitude  of  analytical  works  and  artless  observations. 
There  might  be  noticed,  also,  salient  individualities,  which,  although 
held  in  subjection,  repeat  the  great  men  without  resembling  them 
too  closely,  and  make  side  discoveries  without  appearing  to  dis- 
cover. Finally,  I  could  cite  names  which  are  an  infinite  honor  to 
us  ;  and  I  should  take  care  not  to  except  an  ingenious,  brilliant, 
multiform  painter,*  who  has  treated  a  thousand  things,  fancy,  my- 
thology, landscape,  —  who  has  loved  the  country  and  old  paintings, 
Rembrandt  and  Watteau,  —  who  has  particularly  loved  Correggio, 
and  passionately  the  coppices  of  Fontainebleau,  and  above  all,  per- 
haps, the  combinations  of  a  slightly  chimerical  palette,  —  the  one 
who,  among  all  contemporary  painters  (and  this  is  indeed  an  honor), 
first  divined  Rousseau,  understood  him,  caused  him  to  be  understood, 
proclaimed  him  a  master  and  his  master,  and  placed  at  the  service 
of  this  inflexible  originality  his  more  supple  talent,  his  better  under- 
stood originality,  his  accepted  influence,  and  his  well- won  renown. 

What  I  desire  to  show,  and  that  will  suffice  here,  is  that  from  the 
first  day  the  impulse  given  by  the  Dutch  School  and  Ruysdael,  the 
direct  impulse,  stopped  short,  or  was  turned  aside  ;  and  that  two  men 
especially  contributed  to  substitute  the  exclusive  study  of  nature  for 
the  study  of  the  masters  of  the  North,  —  Corot,  who  had  no  union 

»  Diaz.  — TR. 


210       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

with  them,  and  Rousseau,  who  had  a  livelier  affection  for  their  works, 
a  more  exact  remembrance  of  their  methods,  but  had  also  an  imperi- 
ous desire  to  see  more,  to  see  differently,  and  to  express  everything 
which  had  escaped  them.  The  result  was  two  consequent  and  par- 
allel facts,  —  studies  subtler  if  not  better  made,  and  methods  more 
complicated  if  not  more  learned. 

What  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  Bernardin  de  Saint  Pierre,  Chateau- 
briand, and  Se"nancour,  our  first  landscape  masters  in  literature,  ob- 
served at  a  glance,  expressed  in  brief  formulas,  will  be  only  a  very 
incomplete  abridgment,  and  a  very  limited  survey  on  the  day  when 
literature  shall  become  purely  descriptive.  In  the  same  way  the 
needs  of  travelling,  analytical,  and  imitative  painting  found  them- 
selves greatly  straitened  in  foreign  styles  and  methods.  The  eye 
became  more  curious  and  precise  ;  sensitiveness,  without  being  more 
lively,  became  more  nervous  ;  drawing  penetrated  farther ;  obser- 
vations were  multiplied ;  nature,  more  closely  studied,  swarmed  with 
details,  incidents,  effects,  and  shades ;  a  thousand  secrets  were  de- 
manded of  her,  that  she  had  kept  to  herself  either  because  no  one 
had  known  how  or  because  no  one  had  wished  to  interrogate  her 
profoundly  on  all  these  points.  A  language  was  necessary  to  ex- 
press this  multitude  of  new  sensations  ;  and  it  was  Rousseau  almost 
alone  who  invented  the  vocabulary  we  employ  to-day.  In  his 
sketches  and  rough  draughts  and  in  his  finished  works  you  will 
perceive  trials,  efforts,  inventions,  successful  or  unsuccessful,  excel- 
lent neologisms,  or  phrases  hazarded,  with  which  this  profound 
seeker  of  formulas  sought  to  enrich  the  ancient  language  and  the 


INFLUENCE  OF  HOLLAND   UPON  FRENCH  LANDSCAPE.    211 

ancient  grammar  of  the  painters.  If  you  take  one  of  his  pictures, 
the  best,  and  place  it  beside  a  picture  by  Ruysdael,  Hobbema,  or  Wy- 
nants,  of  the  same  order  and  the  same  acceptation,  you  will  be  struck 
by  the  differences,  almost  as  much  as  if  you  read,  one  after  the  other, 
a  page  of  a  modern  descriptive  writer,  after  having  read  a  page  of 
the  Confessions  or  of  Obermann.  There  is  the  same  effort,  the  same 
increase  of  studies,  and  the  same  result  in  the  work.  The  terms 
are  more  characteristic,  the  observation  more  uncommon,  the  palette 
infinitely  more  rich,  the  color  more  expressive,  even  the  construction 
more  scrupulous.  All  seems  to  be  more  felt,  everything  is  more 
thoughtful,  more  scientifically  reasoned  and  calculated.  A  Hollander 
would  gape  with  wonder  at  such  scrupulousness,  and  be  stupefied 
by  such  analytical  faculties.  And  yet  are  these  works  better,  more 
powerfully  inspired  ?  Are  they  more  living  ?  When  Rousseau 
represents  a  White  Frost  on  the  Plain,  is  he  nearer  the  truth 
than  are  Ostade  and  Van  de  Velde  with  their  Skaters  ?  When 
Rousseau  paints  a  Trout-Fishing,  is  he  graver,  moister,  more 
shady,  than  is  Ruysdael  with  his  sleeping  waters  and  his  sombre 
cascades  ? 

A  thousand  times  there  have  been  described,  in  voyages,  ro- 
mances, or  in  poems,  the  waters  of  a  lake  beating  upon  a  deserted 
beach,  at  night  when  the  moon  is  rising,  while  a  nightingale  is  sing- 
ing afar  off.  Did  not  Senancour  sketch  this  picture  once  for  all  in  a 
few  grave,  brief,  and  ardent  lines  ?  A  new  art  was  born  then  on 
the  same  day  under  the  double  form  of  book  and  picture,  with  the 
same  tendencies,  with  artists  endowed  with  the  same  spirit,  and  with 


212       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

the  same  audience  to  enjoy  them.  Was  it  a  progress,  or  the  con- 
trary ?  Posterity  will  decide  upon  it  better  than  we  can. 

What  is  positive  is,  that  in  twenty  or  twenty-five  years,  from  1830 
to  1855,  the  French  School  had  made  great  attempts,  had  produced 
enormously,  and  had  greatly  advanced  matters,  since,  starting  from 
Ruysdael  with  his  Windmills,  Flood  Gates,  and  Bushes,  —  that  is 
to  say,  from  a  very  Dutch  sentiment  expressed  in  wholly  Dutch 
formulas,  —  it  had  reached  the  point  on  one  side  of  creating  an  ex- 
clusively French  style  with  Corot,  and  on  the  other  side  of  prepar- 
ing through  Rousseau  the  future  of  an  art  still  more  universal  Did 
it  stop  there  ?  Not  entirely. 

Love  of  home  has  never  been,  even  in  Holland,  anything  but  an 
exceptional  sentiment  and  a  slightly  singular  habit.  In  all  epochs 
have  been  found  people  whose  feet  burned  to  go  to  some  new  place. 
The  tradition  of  journeys  to  Italy  is  perhaps  the  sole  one  common  to 
all  the  schools,  whether  Flemish,  Dutch,  English,  French,  German,  or 
Spanish.  From  Both,  Berghem,  Claude,  and  Poussin  to  the  painters 
of  our  day,  there  have  been  no  landscape  painters  who  have  not 
longed  to  see  the  Apennines  and  the  Roman  Campagna,  and  there 
never  has  been  a  school  local  enough  to  prevent  Italian  landscape 
from  introducing  into  it  that  foreign  flower  which  has  never  borne 
anything  but  hybrid  fruit.  In  the  last  thirty  years  people  have  gone 
much  farther.  Distant  journeys  have  tempted  the  painters,  and 
changed  many  things  in  painting.  The  motive  for  these  adventurous 
excursions  was  at  first  that  need  of  new  ground  proper  to  all  popula- 
tions grown  to  excess  in  one  spot,  a  curiosity  for  discoveries,  and  a 


INFLUENCE  OF  HOLLAND   UPON  FRENCH  LANDSCAPE.    213 

sort  of  necessity  of  changing  place  in  order  to  invent.  It  was  also 
the  consequence  of  certain  scientific  studies  whose  progress  was  ob- 
tained only  by  travels  around  the  globe,  among  climates  and  races. 
The  result  was  the  style  you  are  familiar  with,  —  a  cosmopolitan 
painting,  rather  novel  than  original,  very  slightly  French,  which  will 
represent  in  our  history  (if  history  remarks  upon  it  at  all)  but  a 
moment  of  curiosity,  uncertainty,  and  unrest,  which  is  really  only  a 
change  of  air  tried  by  people  in  not  very  good  health. 

However,  without  leaving  France,  we  continue  to  seek  for  land- 
scape a  more  decided  form.  It  would  be  a  curious  work  to  record 
this  latent  elaboration,  so  slow  and  confused,  of  a  new  fashion  which 
has  not  been  discovered,  which  is  even  very  far  from  being  found ; 
and  I  am  astonished  that  criticism  has  not  more  closely  studied  this 
fact  at  the  very  time  when  it  was  being  accomplished  under  our 
eyes. 

A  certain  unclassing  seems  to  be  operating  to-day  among  painters. 
There  are  fewer  categories,  I  would  willingly  say  castes,  than  there 
were  formerly.  History  borders  on  genre,  which  itself  borders  on 
landscape  and  even  on  still  life.  Many  boundaries  have  disappeared. 
How  many  new  relations  the  picturesque  has  brought  about !  Less 
stiffness  on  one  side,  more  boldness  on  the  other,  less  huge  canvases, 
the  need  of  pleasing,  and  pleasing  one's  self,  country  life  which  opens 
so  many  eyes,  —  all  this  has  mingled  styles  and  transformed  methods. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  say  up  to  what  point  the  broad  daylight 
of  the  fields,  entering  the  most  austere  studios,  has  there  produced 
conversions  and  confusions. 


214       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

Landscape  makes  every  day  more  proselytes  than  progress.  Those 
who  practise  it  exclusively  are  not  more  skilful  on  that  account,  but 
there  are  more  painters  who  try  it.  Open  air,  diffused  light,  the  real 
sunlight,  take  to-day  in  painting,  and  in  all  paintings,  an  importance 
which  has  never  before  been  recognized,  and  which,  let  us  say  it 
frankly,  they  do  not  deserve. 

All  the  fancies  of  the  imagination,  and  what  were  called  the  myste- 
ries of  the  palette  at  a  time  when  mystery  was  one  of  the  attractions  of 
painting,  give  place  to  the  love  of  the  absolute  textual  truth.  Photo- 
graphic studies  as  to  the  effects  of  light  have  changed  the  greater 
proportion  of  ways  of  seeing,  feeling,  and  painting.  At  this  present 
time  painting  is  never  sufficiently  clear,  sharp,  formal,  and  crude.  It 
seems  as  if  the  mechanical  reproduction  of  what  is,  becomes  to-day 
the  highest  expression  of  experience  and  knowledge,  and  that  talent 
consists  in  struggling  for  exactitude,  precision,  and  imitative  force 
with  an  instrument.  All  personal  interference  of  sensibility  is  out 
of  place.  What  the  mind  has  imagined,  is  considered  an  artifice ; 
and  all  artifice,  that  is,  all  conventionality,  is  proscribed  by  an  art 
which  can  be  nothing  but  conventional.  Hence  the  controversies 
in  which  the  pupils  of  nature  have  numbers  on  their  side.  There 
are  even  scornful  appellations  to  designate  contrary  practices.  They 
are  called  the  old  game,  as  much  as  to  say,  an  antiquated,  doting,  and 
superannuated  fashion  of  comprehending  nature  by  introducing  one's 
own  into  it.  Choice  of  subject,  drawing,  palette,  everything  partici- 
pates in  this  impersonal  manner  of  seeing  and  treating  things.  We 
are  far  from  the  ancient  customs ;  I  mean,  the  customs  of  forty  years 


INFLUENCE  OF  HOLLAND   UPON  FRENCH  LANDSCAPE.     215 

ago,  when  bitumen  rippled  in  streams  upon  the  palettes  of  the  Ro- 
mantic painters,  and  passed  for  the  auxiliary  color  of  the  ideal. 

Every  year  there  is  a  time  and  a  place  where  these  new  fashions 
proclaim  themselves  with  boldness,  —  that  is,  at  our  spring  exhibition. 
If  you  keep  yourself  at  all  familiar  with  the  novelties  there  produced, 
you  will  remark  that  the  most  recent  painting  aims  at  striking  the  eye 
by  salient,  textual  pictures,  easily  recognizable  by  their  truth  and  ab- 
sence of  artifice,  and  also  giving  us  exactly  the  sensations  produced 
by  what  we  could  see  in  the  street,  while  the  public  is  quite  disposed 
to  applaud  an  art  which  represents  with  so  much  fidelity  its  habits, 
its  face,  its  clothes,  its  taste,  its  inclination,  and  its  mind.  But,  you 
will  say,  the  historical  painter  ?  In  the  first  place,  in  the  way  things 
are  going,  is  it  quite  certain  that  an  historical  school  still  exists  ? 
Finally,  if  this  appellation  of  old  fashion  is  applied  still  to  traditions 
brilliantly  defended,  but  very  little  followed,  do  not  imagine  that  the 
historical  painters  escape  the  fusion  of  styles  and  resist  the  tempta- 
tion of  entering  themselves  into  the  current.  They  hesitate,  they 
have  some  scruples,  but  finally  they  launch  themselves  in  it.  Look 
from  year  to  year  at  the  conversions  that  occur,  and  without  examin- 
ing profoundly,  consider  the  color  of  the  pictures  alone  ;  if  from  dark 
they  become  light,  if  from  black  they  become  white,  if  from  deep  they 
become  superficial,  if  from  supple  they  become  stiff,  if  oily  matter 
turns  to  thick  impasto,  and  chiaroscuro  into  Japanese  paper,  you 
have  seen  enough  to  learn  that  there  is  a  spirit  which  has  changed 
its  surroundings,  and  a  studio  which  is  open  to  light  from  the  street. 
If  I  did  not  conduct  this  analysis  with  extreme  caution,  I  would  be 


216       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

more  explicit  and  would  make  you  touch  with  your  finger  undeniable 
truths. 

The  conclusion  I  wish  to  draw  is  that  in  the  latent  state,  as  in  the 
state  of  professional  studies,  landscape  has  invaded  everything,  and, 
what  is  singular,  while  waiting  for  its  own  formula,  it  has  overthrown 
all  formulas,  troubled  many  clear  minds,  and  compromised  some 
talents.  It  is  none  the  less  true  that  it  is  labored  for ;  that  the 
attempts  undertaken  are  for  its  profit ;  and  that  to  excuse  the  harm 
that  it  has  done  to  painting  in  general,  it  would  be  desirable  at  least 
that  it  should  gain  something  itself. 

In  the  midst  of  changing  fashions  there  is,  however,  a  sort  of  con- 
tinuous thread  of  art.  You  can,  in  passing  through  the  rooms  at 
our  exhibitions,  perceive  here  and  there  pictures  which  impress  by  a 
breadth,  a  gravity,  a  powerful  gamut,  an  interpretation  of  effects  and 
things,  where  are  felt  almost  the  palette  of  a  master.  There  are  in 
them  neither  figures  nor  ornaments  of  any  sort.  Grace  is  wholly 
absent  from  them,  but  the  rendering  is  strong,  the  color  deep  and 
grave,  the  material  thick  and  rich,  and  sometimes  a  great  subtlety 
of  eye  and  hand  is  concealed  under  the  wilful  negligences  or  the 
slightly  displeasing  brutalities  of  the  art.  The  painter*  of  whom  I 
speak,  whom  I  would  be  glad  to  name,  joins  to  true  love  of  the 
country  a  not  less  evident  love  of  old  painting  and  the  old  masters. 
His  pictures  prove  it  ;  his  etchings  and  drawings  are  also  of  a  nature 
to  testify  to  it.  Is  not  this  the  hyphen  which  attaches  us  still  to 
the  schools  of  the  Netherlands  ?  In  any  case  it  is  the  sole  corner 

*  Jules  Dupr^. — TR. 


INFLUENCE  OF  HOLLAND   UPON  FRENCH  LANDSCAPE.    21? 

of  French  painting  of  the  present  day  where  their  influence  is  still 
suspected. 

I  know  not  which  of  the  Dutch  painters  is  most  valued  in  the  labo- 
rious studio  that  I  indicate.  And  I  am  not  very  certain  that  at  pres- 
ent Van  d»r  Meer,  of  Delft,  is  not  more  heeded  there  than  Ruysdael. 
One  would  think  so  from  a  certain  disdain  for  drawing,  for  delicate 
and  difficult  constructions,  and  for  care  in  rendering,  that  the  Am- 
sterdam master  would  neither  have  counselled  nor  approved.  But 
it  is  certain  that  there  is  present  the  living  and  present  remembrance 
of  an  art  everywhere  else  forgotten. 

This  ardent  and  powerful  touch  is  of  good  augury.  There  is  no 
well-informed  mind  that  does  not  feel  that  it  comes  in  a  quite  direct 
line  from  the  country  where  above  all  others  they  knew  how  to  paint, 
and  that,  by  following  it  with  some  persistency,  modern  painting  will 
have  a  chance  of  finding  its  lost  way.  I  should  not  be  surprised  if 
Holland  rendered  us  still  another  service,  and  after  having  restored 
to  us  the  literature  of  nature,  some  day  or  other,  after  long  circuits, 
she  should  bring  back  nature  to  our  painting.  To  this  we  must  come 
sooner  or  later.  Our  school  knows  a  great  deal ;  it  is  exhausted  with 
wandering ;  its  store  of  studies  is  considerable  ;  it  is  even  so  rich  that 
it  is  satisfied  with  them,  forgets  itself  in  them,  and  spends  in  collect- 
ing documents  the  forces  that  it  would  better  employ  by  making  use 
of  them  in  production. 

There  is  a  time  for  everything,  and  the  day  when  painters  and 
men  of  taste  shall  be  persuaded  that  the  best  studies  in  the  world 
are  not  worth  one  good  picture,  the  public  mind  will  have  made  one 
more  revolution,  which  is  the  surest  way  of  making  progress. 


X. 

THE  ANATOMICAL  LECTURE. 

I  AM  very  much  tempted  to  be  silent  about  the  Anatomical 
Lecture.  It  is  a  picture  that  one  ought  to  find  very  fine,  abso- 
lutely original,  almost  perfect,  under  penalty  of  committing  in  the 
eyes  of  many  sincere  admirers  an  error  in  propriety  and  good  sense. 
I  regret  to  make  the  avowal  that  it  has  left  me  unmoved.  And 
having  said  that,  it  is  necessary  that  I  should  explain  myself,  or,  if 
you  will,  that  I  should  justify  myself. 

Historically,  the  Anatomical  Lecture  is  of  great  interest,  for  it  is 
known  that  it  is  derived  from  analogous  pictures,  lost  or  preserved, 
and  thus  bears  witness  of  the  way  in  which  a  man  with  a  great 
destiny  appropriates  the  attempts  of  his  predecessors.  In  this 
regard  it  is  an  example,  not  less  celebrated  than  many  others,  of 
the  law  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  take  his  own  wherever  he  may 
find  it,  when  that  man  is  Shakespeare,  Rotrou,  Corneille,  Calderon, 
Moliere,  or  Rembrandt.  Note  that  in  this  list  of  inventors  for  whom 
the  past  labors,  I  cite  but  one  painter,  and  I  might  cite  them  all. 
Finally,  by  its  date  in  the  work  of  Rembrandt,  by  its  spirit,  and  by 
its  merits,  it  shows  the  road  that  he  had  passed  over  since  the  un- 


THE  ANATOMICAL  LECTURE.  219 

certain  gropings  that  are  revealed  by  the  two  overestimated  can- 
vases at  the  Hague  Museum.  I  speak  of  the  St.  Simeon  and  a 
Portrait  of  a  Young  Man,  which  appears  to  me  to  be  evidently  his, 
and  which  in  any  case  is  the  portrait  of  a  child  made  with  some 
timidity  by  a  child. 

When  it  is  remembered  that  Rembrandt  was  a  pupil  of  Pinas 
and  of  Lastman,  if  one  has  seen  a  work  or  two  of  the  latter,  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  novelties  that  Rembrandt  showed  in  the  beginning 
become  less  surprising.  To  tell  the  truth,  and  to  speak  wisely,  neither 
in  inventions,  nor  subjects,  nor  in  the  picturesque  marriage  of  small 
figures  with  grand  architecture,  nor  even  in  the  Israelitish  type  and 
rags  of  his  figures,  nor  in  the  rather  greenish  mist,  and  the  slightly 
sulphurous  light  which  bathes  his  canvases,  is  there  anything  very 
unexpected,  or  consequently  entirely  his  own.  We  must  come  to 
1632,  that  is,  to  the  Anatomical  Lecture,  to  finally  perceive  some- 
thing like  the  revelation  of  an  original  career.  Finally,  it  is  right 
to  be  just  not  only  to  Rembrandt,  but  to  every  one.  We  must  re- 
member that  in  1632  Ravesteyn  was  fifty  or  sixty  years  old,  Frans 
Hals  forty-eight,  and  that  from  1627  to  1633  this  marvellous  work- 
man had  produced  the  most  important  and  also  the  most  perfect 
of  his  fine  works. 

It  is  true  that  both  of  them,  Hals  especially,  were  what  is  called 
painters  of  the  outside ;  I  mean  by  this,  that  the  exterior  of  things 
struck  them  more  than  the  interior,  that  they  used  their  eyes  more  than 
their  imagination,  and  that  the  sole  transfiguration  that  Nature  was 
made  to  undergo  was  that  they  saw  her  elegantly  colored  and  posed, 


220        THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

true  in  all  her  features,  and  reproduced  her  with  the  best  of  palettes 
and  ablest  of  hands.  It  is  also  true  that  the  mystery  of  form,  light, 
and  tone  had  not  exclusively  preoccupied  them  ;  that  in  painting  with- 
out much  analysis,  and  according  to  prompt  sensations,  they  painted 
only  what  they  saw,  added  neither  much  shade  to  the  shadows  nor 
much  light  to  the  light ;  and  that  in  this  way  the  grand  invention  of 
Rembrandt  in  chiaroscuro  remained  with  them  in  the  condition  of  a 
current  medium,  but  not  in  the  condition  of  a  medium  rare  and  even 
poetical.  It  is  none  the  less  true  that  if  Rembrandt  be  placed  in  this 
year  1632,  between  the  professors  who  had  greatly  enlightened  him 
and  the  masters  who  were  extremely  superior  to  him  in  practical 
ability  and  in  experience,  the  Lesson  of  Anatomy  cannot  fail  to  lose 
a  good  part  of  its  absolute  value. 

The  real  merit  of  the  work  is,  then,  to  mark  a  stage  in  the  career 
of  the  painter  ;  it  indicates  a  great  step,  reveals  with  distinctness 
what  it  undertakes,  and  if  it  does  not  yet  permit  us  to  measure  all 
that  he  would  become  in  a  few  years,  it  gives  the  first  warning  of  it. 
It  is  the  germ  of  Rembrandt ;  there  would  be  reason  for  regret  if  it 
were  already  himself,  and  it  would  be  to  misunderstand  him  to  judge 
him  from  this  first  witness.  The  subject  having  been  already  treated 
in  the  same  manner,  with  a  dissecting  table,  a  foreshortened  corpse, 
and  the  light  acting  in  the  same  way  upon  the  central  object  which 
it  is  important  to  show,  it  should  have  been  Rembrandt's  business  to 
have  treated  the  subject  better  perhaps,  and  certainly  to  have  felt  it 
more  delicately.  I  will  not  go  so  far  as  to  seek  the  metaphysical 
meaning  of  a  scene  where  the  picturesque  effect  and  the  cordial  sensi- 


THE  ANATOMICAL  LECTURE.  221 

bility  of  the  painter  suffice  to  explain  everything ;  for  I  have  never 
well  understood  all  the  philosophy  supposed  to  be  contained  in  these 
grave  and  simple  heads,  and  in  these  personages  without  gesture, 
posing  (which  is  a  mistake)  quite  symmetrically  for  their  portraits. 
The  most  living  figure  in  the  picture,  the  most  real,  the  one  that 
most  stands  out,  as  one  might  say  in  thinking  of  the  limbos  that  a 
painted  figure  must  successively  traverse  to  enter  into  the  realities 
of  art,  and  also  the  best  likeness,  is  that  of  Dr.  Sulp.  Among  the 
others  there  are  some  rather  dead  ones  that  Rembrandt  left  on  the 
way,  which  are  neither  well  seen  nor  well  felt  nor  well  painted.  Two, 
on  the  other  hand,  —  I  might  count  three  by  including  the  accessory 
figure  in  the  middle  distance,  —  are,  if  carefully  examined,  those  in 
which  this  distant  point  of  view  is  most  clearly  revealed.  In  them 
there  is  that  inexpressible  something,  alive  and  floating,  undecided 
and  ardent,  which  is  the  whole  genius  of  Rembrandt.  They  are  gray, 
executed  with  the  stump  ;  perfectly  constructed  without  visible  out- 
lines, modelled  from  within,  wholly  alive  with  a  life  of  their  own,  in- 
finitely rare,  that  Rembrandt  alone  discovers  under  the  surfaces  of 
real  life.  This  is  a  great  deal,  since  in  this  relation  the  art  of  Rem- 
brandt already  could  be  spoken  of,  and  his  methods  considered  as  a 
finished  fact,  but  it  is  too  little  when  one  thinks  of  what  a  com- 
plete work  of  Rembrandt  contains,  and  the  extraordinary  celebrity 
of  this  one  is  considered. 

The  general  tone  is  neither  cold  nor  warm  ;  it  is  yellowish.  The 
execution  is  thin  and  has  but  little  warmth.  The  effect  is  salient 
without  being  powerful,  and  in  no  part  of  the  stuffs,  the  .background, 


222       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

or  the  atmosphere  where  the  scene  is  placed,  is  the  work  or  the 
tone  very  rich. 

As  to  the  corpse,  it  is  pretty  generally  agreed  that  it  is  bloated, 
slightly  constructed,  and  lacks  study.  I  might  add  to  these  reproaches 
two  others  of  a  graver  nature,  —  first,  that  apart  from  the  soft  and 
so  to  speak  liquid  whiteness  of  the  tissues,  it  is  not  a  dead  body  ;  it 
has  neither  the  beauty,  the  hideousness,  the  characteristic  accidents, 
nor  the  terrible  accents  of  a  corpse  ;  it  has  been  viewed  with  an  in- 
different eye,  beheld  by  an  absent  soul.  In  the  second  place,  —  and 
this  fault  results  from  the  first,  —  this  corpse  is  (let  us  not  be  deceived) 
simply  an  effect  of  pale  light  in  a  dark  picture  ;  and  as  I  shall  say  to 
you  later,  this  preoccupation  with  the  light  on  its  own  account,  in- 
dependent of  the  object  illuminated,  I  might  say  without  pity  for  the 
illuminated  object,  during  Rembrandt's  whole  life  was  to  serve  him 
or  injure  him  according  to  circumstances.  This  is  the  first  memo- 
rable circumstance  when  his  fixed  idea  manifestly  deceived  him  by 
making  him  say  a  different  thing  from  what  he  had  to  say.  He  had 
a  man  to  paint,  but  he  did  not  take  enough  care  about  this  human 
form  ;  he  had  death  to  paint,  and  he  forgot  it  in  seeking  upon  his 
palette  a  whitish  tone  that  should  be  his  light.  I  wish  to  believe 
that  a  genius  like  Rembrandt  has  frequently  been  more  attentive, 
more  deeply  moved,  and  more  nobly  inspired  by  the  subject  he 
wished  to  render. 

As  to  the  chiaroscuro,  of  which  the  Anatomical  Lecture  offers 
almost  the  first  formal  example,  as  we  shall  see  it  elsewhere  applied 
in  a  masterly  way  to  those  diverse  expressions  either  of  intimate 


THE  ANATOMICAL  LECTURE.  223 

poetry  or  of  novel  modelling,  I   shall  have  other  and  better  occa- 
sions to  speak  of  it. 

To  sum  up  my  conclusions,  I  think  I  can  say  that  fortunately  for 
his  glory,  Rembrandt  has  given,  even  in  this  same  style,  decisive 
notes  which  singularly  diminish  the  interest  of  this  first  picture.  I 
will  add  that  if  the  picture  were  of  small  dimensions,  it  would  be 
judged  a  feeble  work,  and  that  if  the  size  of  this  canvas  gives  it  a 
particular  value,  it  cannot  be  called  a  masterpiece,  as  too  often  has 
been  repeated. 


XL 

FRANS  HALS  AT  HAARLEM. 

As  I  have  told  you,  it  is  at  Haarlem  that  a  painter  in  search  of 
fine,  strong  lessons  ought  to  give  himself  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
Frans  Hals.  Everywhere  else,  in  our  French  cabinets  or  museums, 
in  the  Dutch  galleries  or  collections,  the  idea  that  one  forms  of  this 
brilliant  master,  so  very  unequal  in  his  manner,  is  seductive,  agree- 
able, clever,  rather  frivolous  ;  but  it  is  neither  true  nor  equitable. 
The  man  loses  in  it  as  much  as  the  artist  is  belittled.  He  astonishes 
and  amuses.  With  his  unexampled  celerity,  the  prodigious  good-humor 
and  the  eccentricities  of  his  method,  he  seems  to  stand  out  in  relief, 
by  the  jocoseness  of  his  mind  and  hand,  from  the  severe  background 
of  the  paintings  of  his  time.  Sometimes  he  is  striking  ;  he  makes 
you  think  that  he  is  as  learned  as  he  is  gifted,  and  that  his  irresist- 
ible fire  is  only  the  happy  grace  of  a  profound  talent ;  but  almost 
immediately  he  compromises  himself,  does  himself  discredit,  and  dis- 
courages you.  His  portrait,  which  figures  at  the  Amsterdam  Mu- 
seum, in  which  he  is  reproduced  life  size,  standing  upon  a  sylvan 
slope  beside  his  wife,  represents  him  to  us  quite  well,  as  we  should 
imagine  him  in  his  moments  of  impertinence,  when  he  is  jesting  and 


FRANS  HALS  AT  HAARLEM.  22$ 

lightly  mocking  us.  Painting  and  gesture,  execution  and  counte- 
nance, everything  in  this  portrait,  which  is  altogether  too  unceremo- 
nious, is  in  keeping.  Hals  laughs  in  our  faces,  the  wife  of  this  gay 
jester  does  the  same,  and,  skilful  as  the  painting  is,  it  is  not  much 
more  serious  than  they. 

Such,  to  judge  him  only  by  his  light  side,  is  the  famous  painter 
whose  renown  was  great  in  Holland  during  the  first  half  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  To-day  the  name  of  Hals  reappears  in  our 
school  at  the  moment  when  the  love  of  the  natural  re-enters  it  with 
some  clamor  and  no  little  excess.  His  method  serves  as  a  programme 
to  certain  doctrines  by  virtue  of  which  the  most  word-for-word  exact- 
ness is  wrongly  taken  for  truth,  and  the  most  perfectly  indifferent 
execution  taken  for  the  last  word  of  knowledge  and  taste.  By  in- 
voking his  testimony  for  the  support  of  a  thesis  to  which  he  never 
gave  anything  but  contradictions  in  his  fine  works,  a  mistake  is 
made,  and  in  so  doing,  an  injury  is  done  to  him.  Among  so  many 
high  qualities,  are  only  his  faults  to  be  seen  and  extravagantly  ex- 
tolled ?  I  fear  so,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  makes  me  dread  it.  It 
would  be,  I  assure  you,  a  new  error  and  an  injustice. 

In  the  great  hall  of  the  Academy  at  Haarlem,  which  contains  many 
pages  analogous  to  his,  but  where  he  compels  you  to  look  only  at 
him,  Frans  Hals  has  eight  great  canvases,  whose  dimensions  vary 
from  two  and  a  half  metres  to  over  four  metres.  They  are,  first, 
Repasts  or  Reunions  of  officers  of  the  Corps  of  Archers  of  St. 
George,  of  the  Corps  of  Archers  of  St.  Adrian  ;  finally,  and  later, 
the  Regents  or  Hospital  Regents.  The  figures  in  them  are  of  life 

'5 


226       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

size,  and  very  numerous.  These  paintings  are  very  imposing.  The 
pictures  appertain  to  all  the  periods  of  his  life,  and  the  series  em- 
braces his  long  career.  The  first,  of  1616,  shows  him  to  us  at  thirty- 
two  years  of  age.  The  last,  painted  in  1664,  shows  him  to  us  only 
two  years  before  his  death,  at  the  extreme  age  of  eighty  years.  He 
is  taken,  so  to  speak,  at  the  outset,  and  is  seen  to  grow  and  grope.' 
His  blossoming  came  late,  about  the  middle  of  his  life,  even  a  little 
beyond  it ;  he  fortifies  himself,  and  develops  himself  in  the  midst  of  old 
age ;  finally,  we  are  present  at  his  decline,  and  are  greatly  surprised 
to  see  what  self-possession  this  indefatigable  master  still  maintained 
when  his  hand  first  failed,  and  then  life. 

There  are  few,  if  any,  painters  concerning  whom  we  possess  such 
complete  information,  so  well  graded  and  precise.  The  spectacle  is 
rarely  given  to  us  to  embrace  at  a  glance  fifty  years  of  an  artist's 
labor,  to  be  present  at  his  researches,  behold  him  in  his  successes, 
and  judge  him  from  himself,  in  his  most  important  and  best  work. 
Moreover,  all  his  canvases  are  placed  at  a  convenient  height,  they 
can  be  examined  without  effort ;  they  yield  to  you  all  their  secrets, 
even  supposing  Hals  was  a  mysterious  painter,  which  he  was  not. 
If  you  saw  him  paint,  you  would  know  no  more.  Consequently  the 
mind  is  not  slow  in  deciding,  nor  the  judgment  in  forming. 

Hals  was  only  a  workman.  I  warn  you  of  that  at  once ;  but  as  a 
workman  he  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  clever  and  expert  masters 
who  has  ever  existed  anywhere,  even  in  Flanders  in  spite  of  Rubens 
and  Vandyck,  even  in  Spain  in  spite  of  Velasquez.  Permit  me  to 
copy  my  notes ;  they  have  the  merit  of  brevity,  of  being  taken  on  the 


FRANS  HALS  A  T  HAARLEM.  22? 

spot,  and  of  measuring  and  analyzing  things  according  to  their  in- 
terest. With  such  an  artist  one  is  easily  tempted  to  say  too  much  or 
too  little.  With  the  thinker  we  could  soon  finish,  but  with  the 
painter  we  could  go  far ;  we  must  restrain  ourselves  and  give  him 
his  due  proportion. 

"  No.  54,  1616.  —  His  first  great  picture.  He  is  thirty-two  ;  he  is 
seeking  his  way  ;  he  has  before  him  Ravesteyn,  Pieter  de  Grebber, 
Cornelis  van  Haarlem,  who  enlighten  him,  but  do  not  tempt  him. 
Is  his  master,  Karel  van  Mander,  more  capable  of  guiding  him  ? 
The  painting  is  strong  in  tone,  red  in  principle ;  the  modelling  is 
rough  and  difficult ;  the  hands  are  heavy ;  the  darks  ill  observed. 
With  all  that  the  work  is  very  characteristic.  There  are  three 
charming  heads  to  notice. 

"No.  56,  1627.  —  Eleven  years  later.  He  is  already  himself;  here 
he  is  in  full  flower.  The  painting  is  gray,  fresh,  natural,  a  dark  har- 
mony. Scarfs  tawny,  orange,  or  blue  ;  ruffs  white.  He  has  found 
his  register,  and  fixed  his  elements  of  coloring.  He  employs  pure 
white,  colors  the  lights  with  a  few  glazings,  and  adds  a  little  green. 
The  brown  and  dull  backgrounds  seem  to  have  inspired  Pieter  de 
Hoogh,  and  remind  one  of  the  father  of  Cuyp.  The  features  are 
more  studied,  the  types  perfect. 

''No.  55,  1627.  —  Same  year;  better  still.  More  execution;  the 
hand  more  skilful  and  free.  The  execution  has  shades,  he  varies  it. 
Same  tone  ;  the  whites  are  more  delicate,  the  detail  of  the  ruffs  in- 
dicated with  more  caprice.  In  all,  the  ease  and  grace  of  a  man  sure 
of  himself;  there  is  a  scarf  of  tender  blue  which  is  all  Hals.  Heads 


228       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

unequally  fine  as  to  rendering,  but  all  expressive  and  astonishingly 
individual.  The  face  of  the  standard  bearer,  standing  in  the  centre, 
is  in  a  warm,  frank  value  upon  the  silk  of  the  banner,  and  he,  with 
his  head  a  little  on  one  side,  his  eye  twinkling,  his  small  mouth  deli- 
cate, and  made  thinner  by  a  smile,  is  from  head  to  foot  a  delicious 
piece  of  work.  The  darks  are  stronger ;  he  separates  them  from 
the  red,  composes  them,  amalgamates  them  in  a  fashion  more  ample 
and  healthy.  The  modelling  is  flat,  the  atmosphere  becomes  rare, 
the  tones  are  placed  in  juxtaposition  without  prepared  transitions. 
No  use  of  chiaroscuro  ;  it  is  the  open  air  of  a  room  well  and  equally 
lighted.  Hence  there  are  spaces  between  the  tones  that  nothing 
unites,  a  suppleness  when  the  values  and  the  natural  colors  support 
each  other  closely,  and  hardness  when  the  relation  is  more  distant. 
A  little  system.  I  see  very  clearly  what  conclusion  our  present 
school  draws  from  it.  It  is  right  in  thinking  that  Hals  remains  ex- 
cellent, in  spite  of  this  accidental  intention  ;  it  would  be  wrong  if  it 
thought  that  his  great  learning  and  his  merits  depend  upon  this. 
And  what  would  assure  us  of  it  is  No.  57,  1633. 

"  Hals  is  forty-seven.  This  is  in  his  brilliant  style,  with  a  rich  key- 
board, —  his  masterwork,  absolutely  fine,  not  the  most  piquant,  but 
the  most  elevated,  the  most  abundant,  the  most  substantial,  and  the 
most  learned.  Here  there  is  no  intention,  no  affectation  of  placing 
his  figures  outside  of,  rather  than  in  the  air,  and  of  creating  a  void 
around  them.  None  of  the  difficulties  of  an  art  which,  if  it  is  well 
understood,  accepts  and  solves  them  all,  are  eluded. 

"  Perhaps,  taken  individually,  the  heads  are  less  perfect  than  in  the 


FRANS  HALS  AT  HAARLEM.  229 

preceding  number,  less  spiritually  expressive.  With  this  exception, 
which  is  an  accident  that  might  be  the  fault  of  the  models  as  well  as 
the  painter,  as  a  whole  the  picture  is  superior.  The  background  is 
dark  (noir),  and  consequently  the  values  are  reversed.  The  black  of 
the  velvets,  silks,  and  satins  plays  with  more  fancifulness  on  it ;  the 
colors  separate  themselves  from  it  with  a  breadth,  certainty,  and  a 
harmony  that  Hals  has  never  exceeded.  As  beautiful,  as  faithfully 
observed  in  shadow  as  in  light,  in  strength  as  in  softness,  it  is  charm- 
ing to  see  in  them  such  richness  and  simplicity,  to  examine  their 
choiceness,  their  number,  their  infinite  shades,  and  to  admire  their 
perfect  union.  The  right  side  in  full  brilliancy  is  surprising.  The 
material  in  itself  is  of  the  rarest  kind  ;  thick  and  flowing  paint, 
that  is  firm  and  full,  thick  or  thin,  according  to  need  ;  handling  free, 
intelligent,  supple,  bold,  never  foolish,  never  insignificant ;  every- 
thing is  treated  according  to  its  interest,  its  own  nature,  and  its 
value.  In  one  detail  application  is  felt,  another  is  hardly  touched. 
The  guipures  are  flat,  the  laces  light,  the  satins  shining,  the  silks 
lustreless,  the  velvets  absorb  more  light,  all  without  minuteness  or 
petty  observation.  A  sentiment  prevails  of  the  substance  of  things  ; 
a  moderation  without  the  least  error ;  the  art  of  being  precise  without 
too  much  explanation,  of  making  everything  understood  with  half  a 
word,  of  omitting  nothing  but  suppressing  the  useless  ;  the  touch 
expeditious,  prompt,  and  sharp  ;  the  true  phrase,  and  nothing  but  the 
true  phrase,  found  at  once,  and  never  oppressed  by  overloading  ;  no 
turbulence  and  no  superfluity  ;  as  much  taste  as  in  Vandyck,  as 
much  skilful  execution  as  in  Velasquez,  with  the  hundredfold  diffi- 


230       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

culties  of  a  palette  infinitely  richer,  —  for  instead  of  being  reduced 
to  three  tones,  it  is  the  entire  repertory  of  all  the  tones  known,  — 
such  are,  in  the  full  brilliancy  of  his  experience  and  fire,  the  almost 
unique  qualities  of  this  fine  painter.  The  central  personage,  with  his 
blue  satins  and  his  greenish  yellow  jacket,  is  a  masterpiece.  Never 
was  there  better  painting,  never  will  there  be  any  better  painting. 
It  is  with  these  two  masterworks,  Nos.  55  and  57,  that  Frans  Hals 
defends  himself  against  the  mistaken  use  they  seek  to  make  of  his 
name.  Certainly  he  has  more  naturalness  than  any  one,  but  his  can- 
not be  called  ultra-simplicity.  He  certainly  colors  with  fulness,  he 
models  flatly,  he  avoids  vulgar  roundness ;  but  although  he  has  his 
own  special  modelling,  he  nevertheless  observes  the  reliefs  of  nature  ; 
his  figures  have  backs,  even  when  you  see  them  in  front,  and  they 
are  not  boards.  It  is  also  true  that  his  colors  are  simple,  with  a  cold 
foundation,  and  they  are  broken  ;  they  show  the  use  of  as  little  oil 
as  possible,  their  substance  is  homogeneous,  the  pigment  solid  ;  their 
deep  radiance  comes  from  their  first  quality  as  well  as  from  their 
shading,  but  of  these  colors,  of  such  delicate  choiceness,  such  sure  and 
sober  taste,  he  is  neither  miserly  nor  even  economical.  He  lavishes 
them,  on  the  contrary,  with  a  generosity  which  is  hardly  imitated  by 
those  who  take  him  for  an  example,  and  they  do  not  sufficiently  ob- 
serve with  what  infallible  tact  he  knows  how  to  multiply  them  with- 
out their  injuring  each  other.  Finally,  he  assuredly  permits  himself 
great  liberties  of  hand,  but  till  then  not  one  moment  of  negligence 
can  be  observed  in  him.  He  executes  as  every  one  else  did,  only 
he  shows  his  art  better.  His  address  is  incomparable ;  he  knows 


FRANS  HALS  AT  HAARLEM.  231 

it,  and  is  not  displeased  that  it  should  be  observed  :  in  this  respect, 
especially,  his  imitators  scarcely  resemble  him.  Agree  also  that  he 
draws  marvellously,  first  a  head,  then  the  hands,  then  everything 
which  relates  to  the  body,  clothes  it,  aids  it  in  its  gesture,  contrib- 
utes to  its  attitude,  completes  its  physiognomy.  Finally,  this  painter 
of  fine  groups  is  none  the  less  a  consummate  portrait  painter,  much 
subtler,  much  more  living,  much  more  elegant,  than  Van  der  Heist ; 
neither  is  this  quality  one  of  the  habitual  merits  of  the  school 
which  attributes  to  itself  the  exclusive  privilege  of  understanding 
him  properly." 

Here  finishes  at  Haarlem  the  flowery  manner  of  this  excellent 
master.  I  pass  over  the  No.  58,  1639,  executed  about  his  fiftieth 
year,  and  which,  by  an  unfortunate  mischance,  rather  heavily  closes 
the  series. 

With  the  No.  59,  which  dates  from  1641,  two  years  after,  we 
enter  upon  a  new  fashion,  the  grave  method,  with  a  gamut  entirely 
black,  gray,  and  brown,  conformed  to  the  subject.  This  is  the 
picture  of  the  Regents  of  St.  Elizabeth's  Hospital.  In  its  strong 
and  simple  way  of  execution,  with  its  heads  in  light,  its  costumes 
of  black  cloth,  the  quality  of  the  flesh,  the  quality  of  the  stuffs,  its 
relief  and  its  seriousness,  its  richness  in  these  sober  tones,  this 
magnificent  picture  represents  Hals  differently,  but  no  better.  The 
heads,  as  fine  as  possible,  have  so  much  the  more  value  that  nothing 
around  them  struggles  with  the  master  interest  of  the  living  portions. 
Is  it  to  this  example  of  rare  sobriety,  to  this  absence  of  coloring, 
joined  to  the  accomplished  science  of  the  colorist,  that  the  neo- 


232        THE   OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

colorists  of  whom  I  speak  attach  themselves  most  particularly  ? 
I  do  not  yet  see  a  very  evident  proof  of  it ;  but  if  such  were,  as 
people  like  to  say,  the  very  noble  object  of  their  researches,  what 
torments  must  be  inflicted  upon  these  men  of  studies  by  the  pro- 
found scrupulousness,  the  accomplished  drawing,  and  the  edifying 
conscientiousness  which  make  the  strength  and  beauty  of  this 
picture  ? 

Far  from  recalling  vain  attempts,  this  masterly  picture  reminds 
us,  on  the  contrary,  of  masterpieces.  The  first  memory  it  awak- 
ens is  of  the  Syndics.  The  scene  is  the  same,  the  rendering  simi- 
lar ;  the  conditions  to  be  filled  are  exactly  the  same.  A  central 
figure,  as  fine  as  any  that  Hals  has  painted,  suggests  striking  com- 
parisons. The  relations  of  the  two  works  are  most  evident ;  with 
them  appear  the  differences  between  the  two  painters,  not  contrary 
views,  but  an  opposition  of  two  natures  ;  equal  force  in  execution, 
superiority  of  hand  in  Hals  and  of  mind  in  Rembrandt,  with  a  dif- 
ferent result.  If,  in  the  hall  of  the  Amsterdam  Museum,  where  the 
Clothiers  figure,  Van  der  Heist  were  replaced  by  Frans  Hals,  and 
the  Arquebusiers  by  the  Regents,  what  a  decisive  lesson  it  would 
be,  and  what  miscomprehensions  would  be  avoided  !  There  would 
be  a  special  study  to  make  of  these  two  Regent  pictures.  It  would* 
be  necessary  to  remember  that  in  them  are  not  seen  all  the  manifold 
merits  of  Hals,  nor  all  the  still  more  manifold  faculties  of  Rembrandt, 
but  upon  a  common  theme,  almost  as  if  they  were  in  competition, 
we  are  present  at  a  trial  of  these  two  workmen.  It  can  be  seen  at 
once  where  each  excels  and  is  weak,  and  the  wherefore  can  be  under- 


FRANS  HALS  AT  HAARLEM.  233 

stood.  There  can  be  learned  unhesitatingly  that  there  are  still  a 
thousand  things  to  discover  under  the  exterior  execution  of  Rem- 
brandt, and  that  there  is  not  much  to  divine  behind  the  fine  exterior 
execution  of  the  Haarlem  painter.  I  am  very  much  surprised  that  no 
one  has  used  this  text  for  the  purpose  of  telling  the  truth  for  once 
upon  this  point. 

Finally  Hals  grows  old,  very  old  ;  he  is  eighty.  It  is  1664.  This 
same  year,  he  signs  the  last  two  canvases  of  the  series,  the  last  to 
which  he  ever  put  his  hand,  —  the  Regents'  Portraits,  and  the  portraits 
of  the  Regents  of  the  Old  Men's  Hospital.  The  subject  coincided 
with  his  age.  His  hand  is  no  longer  here.  He  displays  instead  of 
paints  ;  he  does  not  execute,  he  daubs ;  the  perceptions  of  his  eye 
are  still  vivid  and  just,  the  colors  entirely  pure.  Perhaps  in  their 
first  composition  they  have  a  simple  and  masculine  quality,  which 
betrays  the  last  effort  of  an  admirable  eye,  and  says  the  last  word 
of  a  consummate  education.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine  finer  blacks 
or  finer  grayish  whites.  The  regent  on  the  right  with  his  red  stock- 
ing, that  is  seen  above  the  garter,  is  for  a  painter  a  priceless  morsel, 
but  you  find  no  longer  either  consistency  in  design  or  execution.  The 
heads  are  an  abridgment,  the  hands  of  no  importance,  if  the  forms  and 
articulations  are  sought  for.  The  touch,  if  touch  there  be,  is  given 
without  method,  rather  by  chance,  and  no  longer  says  what  it  would 
say.  This  absence  of  all  rendering,  this  failing  of  his  brush,  he  sup- 
plies by  tone,  which  gives  a  semblance  of  being  to  what  no  longer 
exists.  Everything  is  wanting,  —  clearness  of  sight,  surety  in  the 
fingers,  —  and  he  is  therefore  all  the  more  eager  to  make  things  live 


234       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND, 

as  powerful  abstractions.  The  painter  is  three  quarters  dead  ;  there 
remain  to  him,  I  cannot  say  thoughts,  I  can  no  longer  say  a  tongue, 
but  sensations  that  are  golden. 

You  saw  Hals  at  his  beginning,  I  have  tried  to  represent  him  to 
you  as  he  was  when  in  full  force,  this  is  the  way  he  ends ;  and  if, 
taking  him  at  the  two  extremities  of  his  career  alone,  I  were  to 
choose  between  the  hour  when  his  talent  was  born  and  the  far  more 
solemn  hour  in  which  his  extraordinary  talent  abandoned  him, 
between  the  pictufe  of  1616  and  the  picture  of  1664,  I  should  not 
hesitate,  and  it  would  certainly  be  the  last  that  I  should  choose.  At 
this  final  moment  Hals  is  a  man  who  knows  everything  because 
he  has  successively  learned  everything  in  difficult  enterprises.  There 
are  no  practical  problems  that  he  has  not  attempted,  disentangled, 
and  solved,  and  no  perilous  exercise  that  he  has  not  made  a  habit. 
His  rare  experience  is  such  that  it  survives  almost  intact  in  this 
organization  which  is  a  wreck.  It  reveals  itself  still,  and  even  more 
strongly  because  the  great  virtuoso  has  disappeared.  However,  as 
he  is  no  longer  anything  but  the  shadow  of  himself,  do  you  not  think 
that  it  is  very  late  to  consult  him  ?• 

The  error  of  our  young  comrades  is  then  really  only  a  mistake  of 
a  propos.  Whatever  may  be  the  surprising  presence  of  mind  and  the 
vivacious  vigor  of  this  expiring  genius,  however  worthy  of  respect 
may  be  the  last  efforts  of  his  old  age,  they  must  agree  that  the  ex- 
ample of  a  master  eighty  years  old  is  not  the  best  that  there  is  to 
follow. 


XII. 

AMSTERDAM. 

A  ZIGZAG  of  narrow  streets  and  canals  led  me  to  the  Doelen- 
straat.  Day  was  done.  The  evening  was  soft,  gray,  and  hazy.  Fine 
summer  fogs  bathed  the  ends  of  the  canals.  Here,  still  more  than 
in  Rotterdam,  the  air  is  impregnated  with  that  fine  odor  of  Holland, 
which  tells  you  where  you  are,  and  makes  you  recognize  the  turf-pits 
by  a  sudden  and  original  sensation.  An  odor  conveys  everything,  — 
the  latitude,  the  distance  that  one  is  from  the  pole  and  the  equator, 
from  oil  or  aloes,  the  climate,  seasons,  places,  and  things.  Every  one 
who  has  travelled  at  all  knows  that  there  are  no  favored  countries 
but  those  whose  smoke  is  aromatic,  and  whose  firesides  speak  to 
the  memory.  As  to  those  which  only  recall  to  mind  sensations 
of  the  confused  exhalations  of  animal  life  and  of  crowds,  they  have 
other  charms,  and  I  will  not  say  that  one  forgets  them,  but  they  are 
differently  remembered.  Thus,  drowned  in  odorous  baths,  seen  at 
such  an  hour,  while  traversing  the  heart  of  the  town,  not  muddy  but 
moistened  by  the  falling  night,  with  workmen  in  the  streets,  its 
multitude  of  children  on  the  steps,  its  shopmen  before  their  doors, 
its  little  houses  riddled  with  windows,  its  boats  of  merchandise,  its 


236       THE   OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

distant  port,  its  luxury  quite  apart  in  the  new  quarters,  Amsterdam 
is  just  what  one  imagines  when  one  dreams  of  a  Northern  Venice, 
whose  Amstel  is  the  Giudecca,  the  Dam  another  Piazza.  San  Marco  ; 
and  when  beforehand  one  refers  to  Van  der  Heyden  and  forgets 
Canaletto. 

It  is  antiquated,  burgher-like,  stifled,  busy,  and  swarming,  with 
Jewish  airs  even  outside  the  Jewish  quarter  ;  less  grandly  pictu- 
resque than  Rotterdam  seen  from  the  Meuse,  less  nobly  picturesque 
than  the  Hague,  but  more  picturesque  when  intimately  known  than  in 
its  exterior.  One  must  know  the  profound  artlessness,  the  passion  for 
children,  the  love  of  little  nooks,  that  distinguishes  the  Dutch  paint- 
ers, to  understand  the  lovable  and  lively  portraits  that  they  have 
left  us  of  their  native  town.  The  colors  there  are  strong  and  gloomy, 
the  forms  symmetrical,  the  house  fronts  kept  renewed ;  it  is  destitute 
of  architecture  and  without  art  ;  the  little  trees  on  the  quay  are  puny 
and  ugly,  the  canals  muddy.  The  feeling  prevails  that  this  is  a 
people  hurrying  to  plant  itself  upon  the  conquered  mud,  solely  occu- 
pied with  finding  a  lodging  for  its  business,  its  commerce,  its  indus- 
tries, and  its  labor,  rather  than  for  its  comfort,  and  which  never,  even 
in  its  greatest  days,  thought  of  building  there  a  palace  for  itself. 

Ten  minutes  passed  upon  the  Grand  Canal  at  Venice,  and  ten  other 
minutes  passed  in  the  Kalverstraat,  will  tell  all  that  history  can  teach 
us  about  these  two  cities,  the  genius  of  the  two  peoples,  the  moral 
condition  of  the  two  republics,  and  consequently  the  spirit  of  the 
two  schools.  Only  from  seeing  the  lantern-like  habitations  where 
glass  takes  as  much  room  and  is  as  indispensable  as  stone,  the  little 


AMSTERDAM.  237 

balconies  carefully  and  poorly  supplied  with  flowers,  and  the  mirrors 
fixed  in  the  windows,  it  can  be  understood  that  in  this  climate  the 
winter  is  long,  the  sun  unfaithful,  the  light  sparing,  the  life  sedentary 
and  of  necessity  curious  ;  that  contemplation  out  of  doors  is  rare  ; 
that  enjoyment  with  closed  shutters  is  very  -keen ;  and  that  the  eye, 
the  mind,  and  the  soul  there  contract  that  form  of  patient,  atten- 
tive, minute  observation,  a  little  strained,  and,  so  to  speak,  blinking, 
common  to  all  the  Dutch  thinkers  from  the  metaphysicians  to  the 
painters. 

I  am  here  in  the  country  of  Spinoza  and  Rembrandt.  Of  these 
two  great  names,  which  represent  the  most  intense  effort  of  the 
Dutch  brain  in  the  order  of  abstract  speculation  or  purely  ideal  in- 
vention, one  only  occupies  me,  —  the  last.  Rembrandt  has  his  statue 
here,  the  house  he  inhabited  in  his  fortunate  years,  and  two  of  his 
most  celebrated  works,  —  which  is  more  than  is  necessary  to  eclipse 
many  glories.  Where  is  the  statue  of  the  national  poet  Joost  van 
den  Vondel,  his  contemporary,  and  at  his  time  his  equal  at  least  in 
importance  ?  They  tell  me  it  is  in  the  New  Park.  Shall  I  see  it  ? 
Who  goes  to  see  it  ?  Where  did  Spinoza  live  ?  What  has  become 
of  the  house  where  Descartes  sojourned,  the  one  where  Voltaire 
dwelt,  and  those  in  which  died  Admiral  Tromp  and  the  great 
Ruyter?  What  Rubens  is  at  Antwerp,  Rembrandt  is  here.  The 
type  is  less  heroic,  the  prestige  is  the  same,  the  sovereignty  equal. 
Only,  instead  of  being  resplendent  in  the  high  transepts  of  basilicas, 
over  sumptuous  altars,  in  votive  chapels,  upon  the  radiant  walls  of  a 
princely  museum,  Rembrandt  is  shown  here  in  the  little  dusty  rooms 


238       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM   AND  HOLLAND. 

of  an  almost  private  house.  The  destiny  of  his  works  continues  in 
conformity  with  his  life.  From  the  lodging  that  I  inhabit  at  the 
angle  of  the  Kolveniers  Burgwal,  I  perceive  on  the  right,  at  the  edge 
of  the  canal,  the  red  and  smoky  facade  of  the  Trippenhuis  Museum  ; 
that  is  to  say,  through  closed  windows,  and  in  the  pallor  of  this  soft 
twilight  of  Holland,  I  already  see  shining,  like  a  sort  of  cabalistic 
glory,  the  sparkling  fame  of  the  Night  Watch. 

I  need  not  conceal  that  this  work,  the  most  famous  in  Holland, 
one  of  the  most  celebrated  in  the  world,  is  the  object  of  my  journey. 
It  inspires  in  me  a  great  attraction  and  great  doubts.  I  know  no 
picture  that  has  been  more  discussed,  more  argued  about,  and  conse- 
quently has  had  more  nonsense  talktd  about  it  Not  that  it  charms 
equally  all  those  who  are  excited  by  it ;  but  certainly  there  is  no  one, 
at  least  among  the  writers  on  art,  whose  clear  good  sense  has  not 
been  more  or  less  disturbed  by  the  merits  and  eccentricity  of  the 
Night  Watch. 

From  its  title,  which  is  a  mistake,  to  its  lighting,  whose  key  can 
hardly  be  found,  people  have  pleased  themselves,  I  do  not  know  why, 
with  mingling  all  sorts  of  enigmas  with  technical  questions  which 
do  not  seem  to  me  so  very  mysterious,  though  they  are  rather  more 
complicated  than  elsewhere.  Never,  with  the  exception  of  the  Sistine 
Chapel,  have  less  simplicity,  kindness,  and  precision  been  brought  to 
the  examination  of  a  painted  work  ;  it  has  been  praised  beyond 
measure,  admired  without  saying  very  clearly  why,  a  little  discussed, 
but  very  little,  and  always  with  trembling.  The  boldest,  treating 
it  like  a  piece  of  unintelligible  mechanism,  have  taken  it  to  pieces, 


AMSTERDAM.  239 

examined  all  the  parts,  and  have  not  much  better  revealed  the  secret 
of  its  strength  and  its  evident  weaknesses.  On  a  single  point  are 
found  in  accord  those  whom  the  work  offends  and  those  whom  it 
transports,  —  which  point  is,  that,  perfect  or  not,  the  Night  Watch 
belongs  to  that  sidereal  group  in  which  universal  admiration  has  col- 
lected, like  stars,  a  few  almost  celestial  works  of  art !  They  have  gone 
so  far  as  to  say  that  the  Night  Watch  is  one  of  the  wonders  of  the 
world,  and  that  Rembrandt  is  the  most  perfect  colorist  that  ever 
existed,  —  which  are  so  many  exaggerations  or  ironies  for  which 
Rembrandt  is  not  responsible,  and  which  certainly  would  have 
seemed  obscure  to  this  great,  reflective,  and  sincere  mind ;  for  he 
knew  better  than  any  one  that  he  had  nothing  in  common  with  the 
colorists  of  blue  blood,  to  whom  he  is  opposed,  and  nothing  to  do 
with  perfection  as  they  understand  it. 

In  two  words,  taken  as  a  whole,  —  and  even  an  exceptional  picture 
would  not  disturb  the  rigorous  economy  of  this  powerful  genius,  — 
Rembrandt  is  a  master  unique  in  his  own  country,  in  all  the  coun- 
tries of  his  time,  in  all  time  ;  a  colorist,  if  you  will,  but  in  his  own 
way  ;  a  draughtsman  also,  if  you  will,  but  like  no  one  else  ;  better 
than  that,  perhaps,  but  it  would  be  necessary  to  prove  it ;  very 
imperfect  if  one  thinks  of  perfection  in  the  art  of  expressing  beau- 
tiful forms,  and  painting  them  well  with  simple  means  ;  admirable, 
on  the  contrary,  by  his  hidden  sides,  independently  of  his  form 
and  his  color,  in  essence  ;  incomparable,  then,  in  the  literal  sense 
that  he  resembles  no  one,  and  thus  escapes  the  mistaken  compari- 
sons he  is  made  to  undergo,  and  in  this  sense  also,  that  in  the 


240       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

delicate  points  where   he  excels,  he  has  no  one  analogous  to  him, 
and  I  believe  no  rival 

A  work  which  represents  him  as  he  was  in  the  midst  of  his 
career  at  thirty-four  years  of  age,  just  ten  years  after  the  Ana- 
tomical Lecture,  could  not  fail  to  reproduce  in  all  their  brilliancy 
some  of  his  original  faculties.  Does  it  follow  that  it  expressed  them 
all  ?  And  is  there  not  in  this  rather  forced  attempt  something 
which  was  opposed  to  the  natural  use  of  what  was  most  profound 
and  rare  in  him  ? 

The  enterprise  was  new.  The  page  was  vast  and  complicated. 
It  contained  —  what  is  unique  in  his  work  —  movement,  gesticula- 
tion, and  commotion.  The  subject  was  not  his  own  choice,  it  was  a 
theme  with  portraits. 

Twenty-three  well-known  persons  expected  that  he  would  paint 
them  all  in  sight,  in  some  sort  of  action,  and  yet  in  their  military 
clothes.  The  theme  was  too  common  for  him  not  to  make  some 
sort  of  a  story  out  of  it,  and  on  the  other  hand  too  definite  for  him 
to  use  much  invention.  It  was  necessary,  whether  they  pleased  him 
or  not,  to  accept  the  types  and  paint  the  faces.  In  the  first  place 
there  was  required  of  him  the  likeness  ;  and,  great  portrait  painter 
as  he  is  called,  and  as  he  is  in  certain  respects,  formal  exactitude 
in  features  is  not  his  strong  point.  Nothing  in  this  studied  com- 
position exactly  suited  his  visionary  eye,  his  soul  tending  to  some- 
thing beyond  truth  ;  nothing  but  the  fancy  he  intended  to  put  into 
it,  which  the  least  misstep  might  change  into  a  phantasmagoria. 
What  Ravesteyn,  Van  der  Heist,  and  Frans  Hals  did  so  freely  and 


AMSTERDAM.  241 

so  excellently,  could  he  do  with  the  same  ease,  with  equal  success, — 
he  the  opposite  in  everything  of  those  perfect  physiognomists,  and 
those  fine  workmen  of  impulse  ? 

The  effort  was  great.  And  Rembrandt  was  not  one  of  those 
whom  tension  fortifies,  and  to  whom  it  gives  balance.  He  inhabited 
a  sort  of  dark  chamber  where  the  true  light  of  things  was  transformed 
into  strange  contrasts,  and  he  lived  in  the  midst  of  eccentric  reveries 
among  which  this  company  of  men-at-arms  would  introduce  a  good 
deal  of  confusion.  During  the  execution  of  these  twenty-three  por- 
traits we  behold  him  constrained  to  occupy  himself  for  a  long  time 
with  others,  and  very  little  with  himself,  neither  belonging  to  the 
others  nor  to  himself,  tormented  by  a  demon  who  scarcely  ever  left 
him,  restrained  by  people  who  were  posing,  and  did  not  expect  to  be 
treated  as  fictions.  For  those  who  know  the  suspicious  and  fantas- 
tic habits  of  such  a  mind,  it  was  not  in  such  a  work  that  the  inspired 
Rembrandt  of  his  finest  moments  could  appear.  Everywhere  that 
Rembrandt  forgets  himself,  I  mean  in  his  compositions,  whenever 
he  does  not  put  himself  into  them  wholly,  the  work  is  incomplete, 
and  if  it  be  extraordinary,  a  priori  we  can  affirm  that  it  is  defective. 
This  complicated  nature  has  two  very  distinct  faces,  —  one  interior, 
the  other  exterior ;  and  the  latter  is  seldom  the  most  beautiful.  The 
error  one  is  tempted  to  commit  in  judging  him  depends  on  this, 
that  often  one  is  deceived  in  the  aspect,  and  is  looking  at  the  wrong 
side. 

Is  the  Night  Watch  then,  could  it  be,  the  last  word  of  Rembrandt  ? 
Is  it  even  the  most  perfect  expression  of  his  manner  ?  Are  there 

16 


242       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

not  in  it  obstacles  that  belong  to  the  subject,  difficulties  of  stage 
arrangement,  circumstances  new  for  him,  which  have  never  since 
been  reproduced  in  his  career  ?  This  is  the  point  to  be  examined. 
Perhaps  some  light  may  be  thrown  upon  it.  I  think  Rembrandt 
will  lose  nothing  by  it.  There  will  be  only  one  legend  the  less  in 
the  history  of  his  work,  one  less  prejudice  in  current  opinion,  and 
one  superstition  the  less  in  criticism. 

With  all  its  rebellious  airs,  the  human  mind  at  bottom  is  really 
idolatrous.  Sceptical  certainly,  but  credulous,  its  most  imperious 
need  is  to  believe,  and  its  native  habit  to  be  submissive.  It  changes 
masters,  it  changes  idols,  but  its  subject  nature  exists  through  all 
these  variations.  It  does  not  like  to  be  enchained,  but  it  chains 
itself.  It  doubts  and  denies,  but  it  admires,  which  is  one  of  the 
forms  of  faith ;  and  as  soon  as  it  admires  there  is  obtained  from  it 
the  most  complete  abandonment  of  that  faculty  of  free  judgment  of 
which  it  pretends  to  be  so  jealous.  With  regard  to  political,  reli- 
gious, philosophical  beliefs,  does  one  remain  which  it  has  respected  ? 
And  remark  that  at  the  same  time,  by  subtle  turns,  in  which  are  dis- 
covered under  its  revolts  the  vague  need  of  adoring  and  the  proud 
consciousness  of  its  greatness,  it  creates  for  itself  alongside,  in  the 
world  of  art,  another  ideal  and  other  religions,  not  suspecting  to  what 
contradictions  it  exposes  itself  in  denying  the  true,  to  fall  on  its 
knees  before  the  beautiful.  It  seems  as  if  it  did  not  really  see  their 
perfect  identity  with  each  other.  The  things  of  art  appear  to  it  as 
its  own  domain,  where  its  reason  need  fear  no  surprises,  where  its 
adhesion  can  be  given  without  constraint.  It  chooses  celebrated 


AMSTERDAM.  243 

works,  makes  for  them  titles  of  nobility,  attaches  itself  to  them, 
and  permits  no  one  henceforward  to  dispute  their  claim.  There  is 
always  some  foundation  for  its  choice,  —  not  everything,  but  some- 
thing. It  would  be  possible,  in  looking  over  the  work  of  the  great 
artists  for  three  centuries,  to  prepare  a  list  of  these  persistent  credu- 
lities. Without  examining  too  closely  whether  its  preferences  are 
always  rigorously  exact,  one  will  see  that  at  least  the  modern  spirit 
has  no  great  aversion  for  the  conventional,  and  its  secret  leaning 
towards  dogmas  can  be  discovered  by  perceiving  all  those  with 
which  it  has  sown  its  history  for  good  or  ill  There  are,  it  would 
seem,  dogmas  and  dogmas.  There  are  those  that  imitate,  there  are 
others  which  please  and  flatter.  It  costs  nobody  anything  to  believe 
in  the  sovereignty  of  a  work  of  art  that  is  known  to  be  the  product 
of  a  human  brain.  Every  man  of  the  smallest  information  believes, 
simply  because  he  judges  it  and  says  he  understands  it,  that  he 
holds  the  secret  of  this  visible  and  tangible  thing  that  came  from 
the  hands  of  his  fellow-man.  What  is  the  origin  of  this  thing  of 
human  appearance,  written  in  every  one's  language,  painted  equally 
for  the  mind  of  learned  men  and  for  the  eyes  of  the  simple,  which 
so  resembles  life  ?  Whence  comes  it  ?  What  is  its  inspiration  ?  Is 
it  a  phenomenon  of  natural  order,  or  a  real  miracle  ?  All  these 
questions,  which  give  much  occasion  for  thought,  have  been  sifted 
to  the  bottom  by  no  one  ;  people  admire,  they  cry,  "  A  great  man  ! 
a  masterpiece  !  "  and  everything  is  said.  No  one  troubles  himself 
about  the  inexplicable  formation  of  a  work  fallen  from  heaven  ;  and 
thanks  to  this  inadvertence,  which  will  reign  over  the  world  so  long 


244       THE   OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

as  the  world  shall  live,  the  very  man  who  mocks  at  the  supernatural 
will  bow  before  the  supernatural  without  seeming  to  suspect  that  he 
does  so. 

Such  are,  I  believe,  trie  causes,  the  empire,  and  the  effect  of  super- 
stitions in  the  matter  of  art.     More  than  one  example  could  be  cited, 

f 

and  the  picture  of  which  I  wish  to  speak  with  you  is  perhaps  the 
most  notable  and  the  most  brilliant.  I  needed  some  boldness  to 
awaken  your  doubts,  and  what  I  am  going  to  add  will  probably 
show  still  more  temerity. 


XIII. 

THE   NIGHT  WATCH. 

You  know  how  the  Night  Watch  is  placed.  It  is  opposite  the 
Banquet  of  Arquebusiers  by  Van  der  Heist,  and  whatever  may 
have  been  said  about  it,  the  two  pictures  do  each  other  no  harm. 
They  are  as  opposed  as  day  and  night,  as  the  transfiguration  of 
things  and  their  literal  imitations,  slightly  vulgar  and  yet  learned. 
Admit  that  they  are  as  perfect  as  they  are  celebrated,  and  you  will 
have  before  your  eyes  a  unique  antithesis,  which  La  Bruyere  calls 
"  an  opposition  of  two  truths  which  throw  light  upon  each  other." 
I  shall  not  speak  to  you  of  Van  der  Heist  to-day,  nor  probably  at 
any  other  time.  He  is  a  fine  painter,  that  we  might  envy  Holland, 
for  in  certain  periods  of  penury  he  has  rendered  great  service  to 
France  as  a  portrait  painter,  especially  as  a  painter  of  great  compo- 
sitions, but  in  the  matter  of  imitative  and  purely  sociable  art,  Hol- 
land has  something  much  better.  And  when  Frans  Hals  of  Haarlem 
has  been  seen,  one  can  without  difficulty  turn  his  back  upon  Van 
der  Heist  to  simply  occupy  himself  with  Rembrandt. 

I  shall  astonish  no  one  by  saying  that  the  Night  Watch  has  no 
charm,  and  the  fact  is  without  example  among  the  fine  works  of 


246       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

picturesque  art.  It  astonishes,  it  disconcerts,  it  is  imposing,  but 
it  is  wanting  absolutely  in  that  first  insinuating  attraction  which 
persuades,  and  it  almost  always  begins  by  displeasing.  In  the  first 
place  it  wounds  that  logic  and  habitual  rectitude  of  the  eye  which 
loves  clear  forms,  lucid  ideas,  daring  flights  distinctly  formulated  ; 
something  warns  you  that  the  imagination,  like  the  reason,  will  be 
only  half  satisfied,  and  that  the  mind  that  is  most  easy  to  be  per- 
suaded will  submit  only  after  a  time,  and  will  not  yield  without  dis- 
pute. This  depends  upon  divers  causes  which  are  not  entirely  the 
fault  of  the  picture, —  upon  the  light,  which  is  detestable;  upon  the 
frame  of  dark  wood,  in  which  the  painting  is  lost,  which  determines 
neither  its  medium  values  nor  its  bronze  gamut  nor  its  power, 
and  which  makes  it  appear  still  more  smoky  than  it  is  ;  finally,  and 
above  all,  it  depends  upon  the  contracted  nature  of  the  room,  which 
does  not  permit  the  canvas  to  be  placed  at  the  proper  height,  and, 
contrary  to  all  the  most  elementary  laws  of  perspective,  obliges  you 
to  see  it  on  a  level,  or,  so  to  speak,  at  swords'  point. 

I  know  that  people  are  generously  of  opinion  that  the  place  is,  on 
the  contrary,  in  perfect  keeping  with  the  requirements  of  the  work, 
and  that  the  force  of  illusion  obtained  by  thus  exhibiting  it  comes  to 
the  help  of  the  painter's  efforts.  In  this  there  are  many  mistakes  in 
a  few  words.  I  know  but  one  way  of  well  placing  a  picture,  which  is 
to  determine  what  is  its  spirit,  to  consult  consequently  its  needs,  and 
to  place  it  according  to  its  needs. 

In  speaking  of  a  work  of  art,  especially  a  picture  by  Rembrandt, 
one  speaks  of  a  work  not  untruthful,  but  imaginative,  which  is  never 


THE  NIGHT  WATCH.  247 

the  exact  truth,  nor  is  it  the  contrary,  but  which  in  any  case  is 
separated  from  the  realities  of  the  exterior  life  by  its  profoundly 
calculated  approaches  to  truth.  The  personages  who  move  in  this 
special  atmosphere,  largely  fictitious,  whom  the  painter  has  placed 
in  the  distant  perspective  appropriate  to  the  inventions  of  the  mind, 
can  issue  from  it,  if  by  some  indiscreet  arrangement  the  point  of 
view  is  misplaced,  only  at  the  risk  of  being  no  longer  either  what 
the  painter  made  them,  or  what  one  would  wrongly  wish  they  should 
become.  There  exists  between  them  and  us  an  inclined  plane,  to 
use  the  expression  used  in  optics  and  in  theatrical  arrangements. 
Here  this  inclined  plane  is  very  contracted.  If  you  examine  the 
Night  Watch,  you  will  perceive  that,  by  a  rather  daring  arrangement 
upon  the  canvas,  the  two  foremost  figures  in  the  picture,  placed  close 
to  the  frame,  have  hardly  the  remoteness  required  by  the  necessities 
of  the  light  and  shade  and  the  obligations  of  a  well-calculated  effect. 
It  shows  then  a  poor  understanding  of  the  spirit  of  Rembrandt,  of  the 
character  of  his  work,  his  aims,  his  uncertainties,  their  instability  in  a 
certain  balance,  to  make  him  undergo  a  proof  which  Van  der  Heist 
resists,  it  is  true,  but  we  know  on  what  conditions.  I  may  add  that 
a  painted  canvas  is  a  discreet  thing,  which  says  only  what  it  wants  to 
say,  and  says  it  from  afar  when  it  does  not  suit  it  to  say  it  near  by, 
and  that  every  painting  which  attaches  importance  to  its  secrets  is 
badly  placed  when  it  is  forced  to  acknowledge  them. 

You  are  not  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  the  Night  Watch  passes, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  for  an  almost  incomprehensible  work,  and  that  is 
one  of  its  great  attractions.  Perhaps  it  would  have  made  much  less 


248       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

noise  in  the  world  if  for  two  centuries  people  had  not  kept  up  the 
habit  of  seeking  its  meaning  instead  of  examining  its  merits,  and 
persisted  in  the  mania  of  considering  it  as  a  picture  above  all  things 
enigmatic. 

To  take  it  literally,  what  we  know  of  the  subject  seems  to  me  to 
suffice.  First  we  know  the  names  and  the  quality  of  the  personages, 
thanks  to  the  care  the  painter  has  taken  to  inscribe  them  on  a  car- 
touche in  the  background  of  the  picture ;  and  this  proves  that  if  the 
fancy  of  the  painter  has  transfigured  many  things,  the  first  rendering 
belongs  at  least  to  the  habits  of  the  local  life.  We  do  not  know,  it  is 
true,  with  what  purpose  these  men  go  forth  in  arms,  whether  they 
are  going  to  a  shooting-match,  to  a  parade,  or  elsewhere  ;  but,  as  this 
is  not  a  very  mysterious  matter,  I  persuade  myself  that  if  Rembrandt 
has  neglected  to  be  more  explicit,  it  was  that  he  did  not  desire  or 
did  not  know  how  to  be  so,  and  there  are  a  whole  series  of  hypoth- 
eses that  could  be  very  simply  explained  by  something  like  either 
powerlessness  or  a  voluntary  reticence.  As  to  the  question  of  the 
hour,  which  is  the  most  discussed  of  all,  and  also  the  only  one  which 
could  be  decided  the  first  day,  there  was  no  need  to  fix  it  to  discover 
that  the  extended  hand  of  the  captain  casts  a  shadow  upon  the  tail 
of  a  coat.  It  sufficed  to  remember  that  Rembrandt  never  treated 
light  otherwise  ;  that  nocturnal  obscurity  is  his  habit ;  that  shadow 
is  his  ordinary  poetical  form,  his  usual  means  of  dramatic  expression  ; 
and  that  in  his  portraits,  his  interiors,  his  legends,  his  anecdotes, 
his  landscapes,  and  in  his  etchings  as  well  as  his  paintings,  it  is 
usually  with  darkness  that  he  makes  his  light.  Perhaps  reasoning 


THE  NIGHT  WATCH.  249 

thus  by  analogy,  and  at  least  from  certain  inductions  of  pure  good 
sense,  we  may  succeed  in  removing  certain  other  doubts,  and  in  the 
end  there  will  remain,  as  irremediable  obscurities,  only  the  embarrass- 
ment of  a  mind  struggling  with  the  impossible,  and  the  almosts  of  a 
subject  mingled,  as  this  must  have  been,  with  insufficient  realities 
and  scarcely  justifiable  fancies. 

I  will  then  try  —  what  I  wish  had  been  done  long  ago — a  little 
more  criticism  and  a  little  less  exegesis.  I  will  abandon  the  enigmas 
of  the  subject  to  examine,  with  the  care  that  it  requires,  a  work 
painted  by  a  man  who  has  rarely  been  mistaken.  Since  this  work 
has  been  given  to  us  as  the  highest  expression  of  his  genius,  and 
the  most  perfect  expression  of  his  manner,  there  is  reason  for 
examining  very  closely,  and  in  all  senses,  an  opinion  so  universally 
accredited.  So  I  warn  you  that  I  shall  not  escape  the  technical 
controversies  that  the  discussion  necessitates.  I  ask  your  pardon 
in  advance  for  the  rather  pedantic  terms  that  I  feel  already  coming 
from  my  pen.  I  shall  try  to  be  clear,  I  shall  not  promise  to  be 
as  brief  as  I  ought  to  be,  nor  shall  I  engage  not  to  scandalize  at  first 
some  of  the  fanatical  spirits. 

It  is  agreed  that  the  composition  does  not  constitute  the  principal 
merit  of  the  picture.  The  subject  was  not  chosen  by  the  painter, 
and  the  way  in  which  he  undertook  to  treat  it  did  not  permit  the 
first  draught  to  be  either  very  spontaneous  or  very  lucid.  Also  the 
scene  is  undecided,  the  action  nearly  wanting,  the  interest  conse- 
quently divided.  A  vice  inherent  to  the  first  idea,  a  sort  of  irreso- 
lution in  the  fashion  of  conceiving,  distributing,  and  posing,  is  re- 


250        THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

vealed  from  the  beginning.  Some  of  the  people  are  marching,  some 
stopping,  one  priming  a  musket,  another  loading  his  gun,  another 
firing ;  there  is  a  drummer  who  sits  for  his  head  while  he  is  beating 
his  drum,  a  standard-bearer  who  is  a  little  theatrical  ;  finally,  a  crowd 
of  figures  fixed  in  the  immobility  proper  to  portraits,  and  these  are, 
if  I  am  not  mistaken,  the  sole  picturesque  features  of  the  picture. 

Is  this  enough  to  give  it  that  characteristic,  anecdotic,  and  local 
meaning  that  is  expected  from  Rembrandt  painting  the  places, 
things,  and  men  of  his  time  ?  If  Van  der  Heist,  instead  of  seating 
his  arquebusiers,  had  represented  them  moving  in  any  action  whatever, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  he  would  have  given  us  about  their  ways  more 
just  if  not  more  subtle  indications.  And  as  to  Frans  Hals,  imagine 
with  what  clearness,  what  order,  and  what  naturalness  he  would  have 
arranged  the  scene,  how  keen  he  would  have  been,  how  living,  in- 
genious, abundant,  and  magnificent.  The  rendering  conceived  by 
Rembrandt  is  then  more  ordinary,  and  I  dare  say  the  most  of  his 
contemporaries  would  have  judged  him  poor  in  resources  ;  some 
because  his  abstract  line  is  uncertain,  too  narrow,  thin,  symmetrical, 
and  singularly  disconnected  ;  others,  the  colorists,  because  this  com- 
position, full  of  gaps  and  of  spaces  poorly  occupied,  did  not  lend  itself 
to  the  large  and  generous  use  of  colors  which  is  the  ordinary  practice 
of  learned  palettes.  Rembrandt  was  alone  in  knowing  how  with 
his  individual  intentions  to  escape  from  this  dangerous  position  ;  and 
the  composition,  good  or  ill,  was  to  properly  suffice  for  its  design,  for 
its  design  was  to  resemble  in  nothing  either  Frans  Hals,  Grebber, 
Ravesteyn,  Van  der  Heist,  or  any  one  else. 


THE  NIGHT  WATCH.  2$  I 

Thus  there  is  no  merit,  and  very  little  picturesque  invention,  in 
the  general  arrangement.  Have  the  individual  figures  more  ?  I  do 
not  see  a  single  one  that  can  be  indicated  as  a  choice  piece  of  work. 
What  is  very  striking,  is  that  there  exist  between  them  dispropor- 
tions for  which  there  is  no  reason,  and  in  each  of  them  insufficiencies 
and,  so  to  speak,  an  embarrassment  in  characterizing  them,  that  noth- 
ing justifies.  The  captain  is  too  large,  and  the  lieutenant  too  small, 
not  only  beside  Captain  Kock,  whose  stature  crushes  him,  but  beside 
the  accessory  figures,  whose  length  and  breadth  give  to  this  rather 
poorly  finished  young  man  the  appearance  of  a  child  who  wears 
mustaches  too  early.  Considering  each  as  a  portrait,  they  are  un- 
successful portraits,  of  doubtful  resemblance,  of  unpleasant  counte- 
nance, which  is  surprising  in  a  portrait  painter  who  in  1642  had 
given  proofs  of  his  capacity ;  and  this  rather  excuses  Captain  Kock 
for  having  addressed  himself  afterward  to  the  infallible  Van  der 
Heist.  Is  the  guard  who  is  loading  his  musket  better  observed  ? 
And  what  do  you  think  of  the  musket-bearer  at  the  right,  and  the 
drummer  ?  It  may  be  said  that  the  hands  are  failures  in  all  these  por- 
traits, so  vaguely  are  they  sketched,  and  so  little  significant  in  action. 
The  result  is,  that  what  they  hold  is  badly  held,  —  muskets,  halberds, 
drumsticks,  staves,  lances,  the  banner  staff,  —  and  that  the  gesture  of 
an  arm  is  abortive  when  the  hand  which  should  act  does  not  work 
clearly,  and  as  if  alive  with  either  energy,  precision,  or  spirit.  I  will 
not  speak  of  the  feet,  which  are  mostly  hidden  by  the  shadow.  Such 
are  effectively  the  necessities  of  the  system  of  obscurity  adopted  by 
Rembrandt,  and  such  is  the  imperious  intention  of  his  method,  that 


2$2       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

the  same  dark  cloud  envelops  the  base  of  the  picture,  in  which  the 
forms  float  to  the  great  detriment  of  their  point  of  support. 

Must  I  add  that  the  costumes  are,  like  the  resemblances,  almost 
seen,  sometimes  odd  and  unnatural,  and  again  stiff  and  rebellious 
to  the  shape  of  the  body  ?  They  may  be  said  to  be  badly  worn. 
The  casques  are  put  on  awkwardly,  the  felt  hats  are  queer  and  cover 
the  head  ungracefully.  The  scarfs  are  in  their  place,  but  they  are 
knotted  awkwardly.  There  is  nothing  of  the  natural  elegance,  the 
unique  array,  the  carelessness  taken  by  surprise  and  rendered  from 
life,  of  the  costumes  with  which  Frans  Hals  knows  how  to  clothe 
all  ages,  all  statures,  all  corpulences,  and  certainly  also  all  ranks. 
We  feel  no  more  satisfied  upon  this  point  than  on  many  others.  We 
ask  ourselves  if  this  is  not  like  a  laborious  fancy,  like  an  effort  to  be 
strange,  which  is  neither  agreeable  nor  striking. 

Some  of  the  heads  are  very  fine ;  I  have  indicated  those  which  are 
not.  The  best,  the  only  ones  in  which  the  hand  and  sentiment  of  a 
master  are  recognized,  are  those  which  from  the  depths  of  the  can- 
vas dart  at  you,  with  vague  eyes,  the  delicate  spark  of  their  mobile 
glance.  Do  not  examine  severely  either  their  construction,  their 
planes,  or  their  bony  structure  ;  accustom  yourself  to  the  grayish 
pallor  of  their  complexion,  interrogate  them  from  afar,  as  if  they 
were  looking  at  you  from  a  great  distance,  and  if  you  want  to  know 
how  they  live,  look  at  them  as  Rembrandt  desires  his  human  effigies 
to  be  looked  at,  attentively,  for  a  long  time,  in  the  eyes  and  mouth. 

There  remains  an  episodical  figure,  which,  until  now,  has  foiled 
all  conjectures,  because  it  seems  to  personify,  in  its  features,  its  array, 


THE  NIGHT  WATCH.  253 

its  singular  brilliancy,  and  its  want  of  appropriateness,  the  magic, 
the  romantic  feeling,  or,  if  you  will,  the  other  side  of  the  picture  ;  I 
mean  that  little  witch-like  woman,  childish  and  antiquated,  with  her 
comet  of  a  cap  and  her  pearl-wreathed  hair,  who  slips,  no  one  knows 
why,  in  among  the  feet  of  the  guards,  and,  which  is  a  not  less  inex- 
plicable detail,  who  wears  hanging  at  her  girdle  a  white  cock,  that 
might  be  taken  on  a  pinch  for  a  large  purse. 

Whatever  may  be  her  reason  for  mingling  with  the  procession, 
this  little  figure  does  not  pretend  to  be  human  at  all.  She  is  color- 
less, almost  formless  ;  her  age  is  doubtful  because  her  features  are 
indefinable.  Her  figure  is  the  figure  of  a  doll,  and  her  movements 
are  automatic.  She^has  the  gait  of  a  beggar,  and  something  like 
diamonds  all  over  her  body.  She  has  the  airs  of  a  little  queen,  with 
an  array  that  looks  like  rags.  She  looks  as  if  she  came  from  the 
Jewish  quarter,  from  the  region  of  old  clothes,  from  the  theatre  or 
from  Bohemia,  and  she  seems  the  product  of  a  dream,  and  to  have 
arrayed  herself  in  the  most  extraordinary  of  worlds.  She  has  the 
gleams,  waverings,  and  uncertainties  of  a  pale  fire.  The  more  she 
is  examined,  the  less  can  be  seized  the  subtle  lineaments  which  serve 
as  an  envelope  for  her  incorporeal  existence.  In  the  end  you  see 
in  her  only  a  sort  of  extraordinarily  curious  phosphorescence,  which 
is  not  the  natural  light  of  things,  nor  is  it  the  ordinary  brilliancy 
of  a  well-regulated  palette,  and  this  adds  a  new  sorcery  to  the  inti- 
mate strangeness  of  her  physiognomy.  Note  that  in  the  place  she 
occupies,  in  one  of  the  dark  corners  of  the  canvas,  rather  low  down 
in  the  middle  distance,  between  a  dark  red  man  and  the  captain 


254       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

dressed  in  black,  this  eccentric  light  has  the  more  activity,  because 
the  contrast  with  what  is  near  it  is  so  sudden  ;  and  without  extreme 
precautions,  this  explosion  of  accidental  light  would  have  been 
enough  to  disorganize  the  whole  picture. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this  little  imaginary  or  real  being,  who  is 
only  a  supernumerary,  and  who  has,  as  it  were,  taken  possession  of 
the  first  r61e  ?  I  cannot  undertake  to  say ;  cleverer  men  than  I  have 
not  failed  to  ask  who  she  was,  what  she  was  doing  there,  and  they 
have  imagined  nothing  that  satisfied  them. 

One  thing  only  astonishes  me,  which  is  that  people  argue  with 
Rembrandt  as  if  he  were  himself  a  reasoner.  They  go  into  ecstasies 
over  the  novelty,  the  originality,  the  absence  of  all  rule,  the  free 
range  of  an  entirely  personal  individuality,  which  make,  as  has 
been  very  well  said,  the  great  attraction  of  this  adventurous  work  ; 
and  it  is  precisely  the  fine  flower  of  these  rather  unruly  imagina- 
tions that  is  submitted  to  the  examination  of  logic  and  pure  reason. 
But  if,  to  all  these  rather  idle  questions  upon  the  why  and  wherefore 
of  so  many  things,  which  probably  have  none  at  all,  Rembrandt 
should  answer  thus,  —  "  This  child  is  only  a  caprice  not  less  singular 
and  quite  as  plausible  as  many  others  in  my  engraved  or  painted 
work.  I  placed  it  as  a  narrow  light  between  great  masses  of  shade, 
because  its  minuteness  rendered  it  more  vibrating,  and  it  suited  me 
to  reveal  by  a  flash  one  of  the  obscure  corners  of  my  picture.  Her 
array  is,  moreover,  the  quite  usual  costume  of  my  figures  of  women, 
large  or  small,  young  or  old,  and  you  will  find  a  nearly  similar  type 
frequently  in  my  works.  I  like  what  shines,  and  so  I  have  clothed 


THE  NIGHT  WATCH.  255 

her  with  shining  stuffs.  As  to  these  phosphorescent  gleams  that 
astonish  you  here,  while  elsewhere  they  pass  unperceived,  it  is,  in 
its  colorless  brilliancy  and  in  its  supernatural  quality,  the  light  I 
habitually  give  to  my  figures  when  I  light  them  rather  vividly,"  — 
do  you  not  think  that  such  a  response  would  be  enough  to  satisfy 
the  most  difficult,  and  that,  finally,  the  rights  of  the  arranger  of  the 
scene  being  reserved,  he  will  only  be  obliged  to  explain  to  us  one 
point,  —  the  way  in  which  he  treated  the  picture  ? 

We  know  what  to  think  about  the  effect  produced  by  the  Night 
Watch  when  it  appeared  in  1642.  This  memorable  effort  was 
neither  understood  nor  liked.  It  added  fame  to  the  glory  of  Rem- 
brandt, aggrandized  him  in  the  eyes  of  his  faithful  admirers,  and 
compromised  him  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  had  only  followed  him 
with  effort,  and  did  not  expect  this  decided  step.  It  made  of  him 
a  more  singular  painter,  but  a  less  sure  master.  It  proved  exciting, 
and  divided  people  of  taste  according  to  the  warmth  of  their  blood 
and  the  unbending  character  of  their  reason.  In  short,  it  was  con- 
sidered as  an  absolutely  new  adventure,  but  doubtful,  which  brought 
him  applause,  some  blame,  and  which  at  bottom  satisfied  no  one. 
If  you  know  the  judgments  on  this  subject,  expressed  by  the  con- 
temporaries of  Rembrandt,  his  friends,  and  his  pupils,  you  must  see 
that  opinions  have  not  much  altered  in  two  centuries,  and  that  we 
repeat  very  nearly  what  this  audacious  great  man  must  have  heard 
said  during  his  life. 

The  sole  points  upon  which  opinion  is  unanimous,  especially  in 
our  day,  are  the  color  of  the  picture,  which  is  called  dazzling,  blind- 


256        THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

ing,  unheard  of,  (and  you  must  admit  that  such  words  are  rather 
made  to  spoil  an  eulogium,)  and  the  execution,  which  people  agree 
in  finding  sovereign.  Here  the  question  becomes  very  delicate. 
Cost  what  it  may,  we  must  abandon  convenient  ways,  enter  into 
the  briers,  and  talk  shop. 

If  Rembrandt  was  a  colorist  in  no  sense,  no  one  would  have  made 
the  mistake  of  taking  him  for  a  colorist,  and  in  any  case,  nothing 
would  be  easier  than  to  indicate  why  he  is  not  one  ;  but  it  is  evi- 
dent that  his  palette  is  his  most  ordinary  and  powerful  means  of 
expression,  and  that  in  his  etchings  as  in  his  painting,  he  expresses 
himself  still  better  by  color  and  effect  than  by  drawing.  Rembrandt 
is  then,  with  great  reason,  classed  among  the  most  powerful  color- 
ists  that  have  ever  existed.  So  that  the  sole  way  of  separating  and 
putting  on  one  side  the  gift  which  is  his  own,  is  to  distinguish  him 
from  the  great  colorists  known  as  such,  and  to  establish  what  is 
the  profound  and  exclusive  originality  of  his  notions  about  color. 

It  is  said  of  Veronese,  Correggio,  Titian,  Giorgione,  Rubens, 
Velasquez,  Frans  Hals,  and  Vandyck,  that  they  are  colorists,  be- 
cause in  nature  they  perceive  color  still  more  delicately  than  form, 
and  because  they  color  more  perfectly  than  they  draw.  To  color 
well  is,  according  to  their  example,  to  seize  shades  delicately  or 
richly,  choose  them  well  on  the  palette,  and  bring  them  into 
proper  juxtaposition  in  the  picture.  A  part  of  this  complicated  art 
is  ruled  into  a  principle  by  certain  sufficiently  precise  laws  of  phys- 
ics, but  the  greater  part  is  made  by  the  aptitudes,  the  habits,  in- 
stincts, caprices,  and  sudden  sensitiveness  of  each  artist.  There  is 


THE  NIGHT  WATCH. 

a  great  deal  to  say  upon  this  topic,  for  color  is  a  thing  about  which 
people  who  are  strangers  to  our  art  speak  very  readily  without 
understanding  it  well,  and  upon  which,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  men 
of  the  craft  have  never  spoken  their  mind. 

.  Reduced  to  its  most  simple  terms,  the  question  can  thus  be  for- 
mulated, —  to  choose  colors  beautiful  in  themselves  ;  and,  secondly, 
to  combine  them  in  beautiful,  learned,  and  just  relations.  I  will  add 
that  colors  may  be  deep  or  light,  rich  in  tint  or  neutral,  that  is, 
more  dull ;  frank,  that  is  to  say,  nearer  the  mother  color,  or  shaded 
and  broken,  as  is  said  in  technical  language  ;  finally,  they  may  be 
of  different  values  (I  have  told  you  elsewhere  what  is  meant  by 
that),  and  all  this  is  a  matter  of  temperament,  of  preference,  and 
also  of  convenience.  Thus  Rubens,  whose  palette  is  very  limited 
as  to  the  number  of  the  colors,  whose  mother  colors  are  very  rich, 
and  who  runs  through  the  most  extended  scale,  from  pure  white  to 
absolute  black,  knows  how  to  reduce  himself  when  it  is  necessary, 
and  break  his  color  whenever  it  suits  him  to  introduce  a  dull  tone. 
Veronese,  who  proceeds  in  a  very  different  way,  bends  no  less  than 
Rubens  to  the  necessities  of  circumstances  ;  nothing  can  be  more 
flowery  than  some  of  the  ceilings  in  the  ducal  palace ;  nothing  can 
be  more  sober  in  its  general  bearing  than  the  Supper  at  the  House 
of  Simon,  at  the  Louvre.  It  must  also  be  said  that  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  color  highly  in  order  to  do  the  work  of  a  great  colorist. 

There  are  men,  witness  Velasquez,  who  color  marvellously  with 
the  saddest  colors,  —  black,  gray,  brown,  white  tinged  with  bitumen  ; 
what  masterpieces  have  been  executed  with  these  few  rather  under- 

17 


258      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

toned  notes !  It  suffices  for  this  that  color  should  be  rare,  tender, 
or  powerful,  but  resolutely  composed  by  a  man  skilful  in  feeling 
shades  and  in  proportioning  them.  The  same  man,  when  it  suits 
him,  can  extend  or  reduce  his  resources.  The  day  when  Rubens 
painted,  with  all  the  varieties  of  bistre,  the  Communion  of  St.  Fran- 
cis of  Assisi,  was,  even  speaking  only  of  the  adventures  of  his  pal- 
ette, one  of  the  most  inspired  days  of  his  life. 

Finally,  —  and  this  is  a  fact  to  be  retained  particularly  in  this 
most  brief  definition,  —  a  colorist  properly  so  called  is  a  painter  who 
knows  how  to  preserve  in  the  colors  of  his  gamut,  whatever  it 
may  be,  rich  or  not,  broken  or  not,  complicated  or  reduced,  their 
principle,  their  fitness,  their  resonance,  and  their  truth  ;  and  that 
everywhere  and  always,  in  the  shade,  in  the  half-tint,  and  even  in 
the  most  vivid  light.  It  is  in  this  especially  that  schools  and  men 
are  distinguished.  Take  an  anonymous  painting,  examine  the  qual- 
ity of  its  local  tone,  —  what  that  tone  becomes  in  light,  whether  it 
exists  in  the  half-tint,  if  it  exists  in  the  most  intense  shadow,  —  and 
you  can  say  with  certainty  whether  or  not  this  painting  is  the  work 
of  a  colorist,  and  to  what  epoch,  what  country,  and  what  school  it 
belongs. 

There  exists  on  this  subject,  in  technical  language,  a  regular  for- 
mula which  is  excellent  to  quote.  Every  time  that  color  undergoes 
all  the  modifications  of  light  and  shade  without  losing  anything  of 
its  constituent  qualities,  it  is  said  that  the  shadow  and  the  light  are 
of  the  same  family,  —  which  means  that  both  should  preserve,  what- 
ever may  happen,  the  relationship  most  easy  to  seize  with  the  local 


THE  NIGHT  WATCH.  259 

tone.  Ways  of  understanding  color  are  very  different.  There  are, 
from  Rubens  to  Giorgione  and  from  Velasquez  to  Veronese,  varie- 
ties which  prove  the  immense  elasticity  of  the  art  of  painting,  and 
the  astonishing  liberties  of  method  that  genius  can  take  without 
changing  its  aim  ;  but  one  law  is  common  to  them  all,  and  is  ob- 
served only  by  them,  whether  at  Venice,  Parma,  Madrid,  Antwerp, 
or  Haarlem  ;  it  is  precisely  the  relationship  of  shade  and  light,  and 
the  identity  of  the  local  tone  through  all  the  changes  of  the  light. 

Is  it  thus  that  Rembrandt  proceeds  ?  A  glance  at  the  Night 
Watch  is  sufficient  to  perceive  exactly  the  contrary.  With  the 
exception  of  one  or  two  frank  colors,  two  reds,  and  a  dark  purple, 
except  one  or  two  sparks  of  blue,  you  perceive  nothing  in  this 
colorless  and  violent  canvas  which  recalls  the  palette,  and  the  ordi- 
nary method  of  any  of  the  known  colorists.  The  heads  have  rather 
the  appearance  than  the  coloring  of  life.  They  are  red,  winy,  or  pale, 
without  having  on  that  account  the  true  pallor  that  Velasquez  gives 
to  his  faces  ;  or  those  ruddy,  yellow,  grayish,  or  purple  shades  that 
Frans  Hals  opposes  with  so  much  dexterity  when  he  wishes  to 
specify  the  temperaments  of  his  figures.  In  the  clothes  and  head- 
gear, in  the  very  differing  parts  of  the  adjustments,  the  color  is  neither 
more  exact  nor  more  expressive  than  is  the  form  itself.  When  a 
red  appears,  it  is  a  red  not  very  delicate  in  its  nature,  which  ex- 
presses indistinctly  silk,  cloth,  or  satin.  The  guard  who  is  loading 
his  musket  is  dressed  in  red  from  head  to  foot,  from  his  felt  hat  to 
his  shoes.  Do  you  perceive  that  the  characteristic  peculiarities  of 
this  red,  its  nature,  and  its  substance,  which  a  real  colorist  would 


260       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

not  have  failed  to  seize,  have  occupied  Rembrandt  for  a  single  mo- 
ment ?  It  is  said  that  this  red  is  admirably  consistent  in  its  light 
and  in  its  shadow ;  in  truth,  I  do  not  believe  that  any  man  who  is 
at  all  used  to  handling  a  tone  can  be  of  this  opinion,  and  I  do  not 
suppose  that  either  Velasquez,  Veronese,  Titian,  or  Giorgione,  set- 
ting aside  Rubens,  would  have  admitted  its  first  composition  and 
its  use.  I  defy  any  one  to  say  how  the  lieutenant  is  dressed,  and 
what  color  is  his  coat.  Is  it  white  tinged  with  yellow  ?  Is  it  yellow 
faded  to  white  ?  The  truth  is,  that,  this  person  having  to  express 
the  central  light  of  the  picture,  Rembrandt  clothed  him  with  light, 
very  intelligently  as  to  his  brilliancy,  but  very  negligently  as  to 
his  color. 

Now  here  Rembrandt  begins  to  betray  himself,  since  for  a  colorist 
there  is  no  abstract  light.  Light  in  itself  is  nothing  ;  it  is  the  result 
of  colors  differently  lighted,  and  diversely  radiant  according  to  the 
nature  of  the  ray  they  reflect  or  absorb.  One  very  dark  tint  may 
be  extraordinarily  luminous  ;  another  very  light  one  may  not  be  so 
at  all.  There  is  not  a  pupil  of  the  school  who  does  not  know  this. 
Among  the  colorists  the  light  then  depends  exclusively  upon  the 
choice  of  the  colors  employed  to  render  it,  and  is  so  united  to  the 
tone  that  it  can  be  said  in  very  truth  that  with  them  light  and 
color  are  one.  In  the  Night  Watch  there  is  nothing  of  the  kind. 
The  tone  disappears  in  the  light,  as  it  disappears  in  the  shadow. 
The  shadow  is  blackish,  the  light  whitish.  Everything  is  lightened 
or  darkened  ;  everything  radiates  or  is  obscured  by  an  alternate 
effacing  of  the  coloring  principle.  There  are  in  it  variations  of  val- 


THE  NIGHT  WATCH.  261 

ues  rather  than  contrasts  of  tone.  And  that  is  so  true  that  a  fine 
engraving,  a  well-rendered  drawing,  a  Mouilleron  lithograph,  or  a 
photograph,  give  an  exact  idea  of  the  picture  in  its  great  intentional 
effects,  and  a  representation  only  altered  from  light  to  dark  does  not 
at  all  destroy  its  lines.  If  I  am  well  understood,  this  is  what  shows 
evidently  that  to  make  combinations  of  color  as  they  are  habitually 
understood  is  not  Rembrandt's  way  of  working,  and  that  we  must 
continue  to  seek  elsewhere  the  secret  of  his  real  power  and  the 
familiar  expression  of  his  genius.  Rembrandt  is  in  everything  a 
dealer  in  the  abstract,  who  can  be  defined  only  by  elimination. 
When  I  shall  have  said  with  certainty  all  that  he  is  not,  perhaps  I 
shall  succeed  in  determining  exactly  what  he  is. 

Is  he  a  great  workman  ?  Assuredly.  Is  the  Night  Watch  in  its 
workmanship,  and  in  relation  to  himself,  when  it  is  compared  to  the 
masterworks  of  the  great  virtuosos,  a  fine  piece  of  execution  ?  I 
do  not  think  it  is  ;  this  is  another  miscomprehension  that  it  is  a 
good  thing  to  cause  to  disappear. 

The  handiwork,  as  I  said  concerning  Rubens,  is  only  the  conse- 
quent and  adequate  expression  of  the  sensations  of  the  eye  and  the 
operations  of  the  mind.  What  is  in  itself  a  well-turned  phrase,  a 
well-chosen  word,  but  the  instantaneous  witness  of  what  the  writer 
wished  to  say,  and  of  the  intention  that  he  had  to  say  it  thus  rather 
than  otherwise  ?  Consequently,  to  paint  well  generally  means  to 
draw  well  or  color  well  ;  and  the  manner  in  which  the  hand  acts  is 
only  the  definite  announcement  of  the  painter's  intentions.  If  the 
execution  of  men  sure  of  themselves  is  examined,  it  can  be  seen 


262       THE   OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

how  obedient  is  the  hand,  how  prompt  in  well  expressing  the  dic- 
tation of  the  mind,  and  what  shades  of  sensitiveness,  of  ardor,  of 
delicacy,  of  wit,  of  depth,  pass  from  the  ends  of  their  ringers, 
whether  these  fingers  are  armed  with  the  chisel,  the  brush,  or  the 
burin.  Every  artist,  then,  has  his  manner  of  painting,  as  he  has 
his  size  and  his  way  of  working  with  the  thumb,  and  Rembrandt 
escapes  this  common  law  no  more  than  the  rest  of  them. 

How  does  he  execute  in  the  picture  which  occupies  us  ?  Does  he 
treat  any  of  the  stuffs  well  ?  No.  Does  he  ingeniously  and  vividly 
express  their  folds,  their  breaks,  their  suppleness,  or  their  tissue  ? 
Certainly  not.  When  he  puts  a  feather  in  a  hat,  does  he  give  to 
this  feather  the  lightness,  the  floating  grace,  that  are  seen  in  Van- 
dyck  or  Hals  or  Velasquez  ?  Does  he  indicate  with  some  shining 
touches  on  a  dull  ground,  in  their  form  and  the  feeling  of  the  body, 
the  human  aspect  of  a  well  adjusted  garment,  rustling  with  a  gesture 
or  crumpled  by  use  ?  Does  he  know  how,  in  a  few  brief  touches, 
and  proportioning  his  trouble  to  the  value  of  things,  to  indicate  a 
lace,  induce  belief  in  jewelry  and  rich  embroideries  ? 

There  are,  in  the  Night  Watch,  swords,  muskets,  partisans,*  pol- 
ished helmets,  damasked  gorgets,  funnel-shaped  boots,  shoes  with 
ribbons,  a  halberd  with  its  pennqn  of  blue  silk,  a  drum,  and  lances. 
Imagine  with  what  ease,  with  what  lack  of  ceremony,  and  what  a 
wonderful  way  of  making  things  probable  without  emphasizing,  Ru- 
bens, Veronese,  Vandyck,  .Titian  himself,  finally  Frans  Hals,  that 
workman  of  unparalleled  cleverness,  would  have  briefly  indicated, 

*  A  kind  of  pike  or  halberd. 


THE  NIGHT  WATCH.  263 

and  superbly  carried  off  all  these  accessories.  Do  you  find  honestly 
that  Rembrandt,  in  the  Night  Watch,  excels  in  treating  them  thus  ? 
Look,  I  entreat  you,  —  for  in  this  punctilious  discussion  proofs  are 
necessary,  —  at  the  halberd  which  the  little  Lieutenant  Ruytenberg 
holds  at  the  end  of  his  stiff  arm  ;  see  the  foreshortened  pike ;  see 
especially  the  floating  silk,  and  tell  me  if  a  workman  of  such  power 
could  possibly  express  more  painfully  an  object  which  ought  to  be 
born  under  his  brush  without  his  knowing  it.  Look  at  the  laced 
sleeves  that  are  spoken  of  with  such  praise,  the  cuffs,  the  gloves  ; 
examine  the  hands.  Consider  well  how  in  their  negligence,  affected 
or  unaffected,  the  form  is  accentuated,  the  foreshortening  expressed. 
The  touch  is  thick,  embarrassed,  almost  awkward  and  groping.  It 
might  really  be  said  that  it  is  falsely  applied,  and  that,  put  across 
when  it  ought  to  be  put  up  and  down,  laid  on  flat  when  anybody 
else  would  have  applied  it  in  a  circular  fashion,  it  confuses  form 
rather  than  determines  it  Everywhere  there  are  bright  spots  (re- 
hauts),  that  is,  decided  accents  that  are  not  necessary  and  are  neither 
true  nor  appropriate.  There  are  thicknesses  that  are  overloaded, 
roughnesses  that  nothing  justifies,  except  the  need  of  giving  con- 
sistency to  the  lights,  and  the  obligation  in  his  new  method  to  work 
over  rugged  tissues  rather  than  a  smooth  basis ;  salient  points,  which 
mean  to  be  real  and  are  not  so,  distract  the  eye  and  have  the  repu- 
tation of  being  original  art ;  there  are  ellipses  that  are  omissions, 
forgetfulnesses  that  would  make  one  believe  in  the  artist's  impotence. 
In  all  the  salient  parts  we  see  a  convulsive  hand,  an  embarrassment 
in  finding  the  proper  phrase,  a  violence  of  terms,  and  a  turbulence 


264      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

of  execution  that  are  at  variance  with  the  small  degree  of  reality 
obtained,  and  the  rather  dead  immobility  of  the  result.  Do  not  take 
my  word  for  it.  Go  elsewhere  and  see  good  and  beautiful  examples 
among  the  most  serious  as  well  as  the  most  lively  ;  address  yourself 
in  succession  to  the  rapid  hands  and  to  the  patient  ones,  see  their 
finished  works,  their  sketches,  and  then  return  to  the  Night  Watch, 
and  compare.  I  will  say  more  :  address  yourself  to  Rembrandt  him- 
self when  he  is  at  his  ease,  free  in  his  ideas,  free  in  his  art ;  when  he 
is  imagining,  when  he  is  moved,  and  nervous  without  too  much  ex- 
asperation, and  when  master  of  his  subject,  his  sentiment,  and  his 
language,  he  becomes  perfect,  that  is,  admirably  skilful  and  profound, 
which  is  better  than  being  adroit.  There  are  circumstances  in  which 
the  method  of  Rembrandt  equals  that  of  the  best  masters,  and  main- 
tains itself  at  the  height  of  his  finest  gifts.  But  it  is  when  it  is  sub- 
ject to  perfectly  natural  obligations,  or  when  it  is  animated  by  the 
interest  of  an  imaginary  subject.  Beyond  that,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  Night  Watch,  you  have  only  Rembrandt  mixed,  that  is  to  say, 
the  ambiguities  of  his  mind,  and  false  pretences  of  skill  of  hand. 

Finally,  I  come  to  the  incontestable  interest  of  the  picture,  to  the 
grand  effort  of  Rembrandt  in  a  new  direction.  I  speak  of  the  appli- 
cation on  a  great  scale  of  that  manner  of  seeing  which  is  his  own, 
that  has  been  called  chiaroscuro. 

Here  there  is  no  mistake  possible.  What  one  bestows  on  Rem- 
brandt is  entirely  his  own.  Chiaroscuro  is,  there  is  no  doubt,  the 
native  and  necessary  form  of  his  impressions  and  of  his  ideas.  Others 
than  he  used  it ;  none  used  it  so  continually,  so  ingeniously  as  he.  It 


THE  NIGHT   WATCH.  265 

is  the  mysterious  form  above  all,  the  most  veiled,  the  most  elliptical, 
the  most  rich  in  suppressions  and  surprises,  that  exists  in  the  pictu- 
resque language  of  painters.  In  this  regard  it  is,  more  than  any  other, 
the  form  of  intimate  sensations  or  of  ideas.  It  is  light,  misty,  veiled, 
discreet ;  it  lends  its  charm  to  things  which  conceal  themselves,  in- 
vites curiosity,  adds  an  attraction  to  moral  beauty,  gives  a  grace  to 
the  speculations  of  conscience.  Finally,  it  partakes  of  sentiment,  of 
emotion,  of  the  uncertain,  the  indefinite  and  the  intimate,  of  the 
dream  and  the  ideal.  And  this  is  why  it  is,  as  it  should  be,  the  poet- 
ical and  natural  atmosphere  that  the  genius  of  Rembrandt  has  not 
ceased  to  inhabit.  It  would  be  possible,  then,  by  means  of  this  ha- 
bitual form  of  his  thought,  to  study  Rembrandt  in  his  most  intimate 
and  true  nature.  And  if,  instead  of  touching  it  lightly,  I  were  to 
profoundly  penetrate  so  vast  a  subject,  you  would  see  his  whole 
psychologic  nature  issue  of  itself  from,  the  mists  of  chiaroscuro  ; 
but  I  shall  not  say  what  is  necessary  to  say,  and  yet  I  trust  Rem- 
brandt will  none  the  less  stand  forth. 

In  very  ordinary  language,  and  in  its  action  common  to  all  schools, - 
chiaroscuro  is  the  art  of  rendering  the  atmosphere  visible,  and  of 
painting  an  object  enveloped  in  air.  Its  aim  is  to  create  all  the 
picturesque  accidents  of  shadow,  of  half  tint  and  light,  of  relief  and 
distances,  and  consequently  to  give  more  variety,  unity  of  effect, 
caprice,  and  relative  truth,  whether  to  forms  or  to  colors.  The 
contrary  is  an  acceptation  more  ingenuous  and  more  abstract,  by 
virtue  of  which  objects  are  shown  such  as  they  are,  seen  as  if  near, 
the  air  being  suppressed,  and  consequently  without  other  perspec- 


266       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

tive  than  linear  perspective,  which  results  from  the  diminution  of 
objects  in  relation  to  the  horizon.  Aerial  perspective  presupposes 
already  a  little  chiaroscuro. 

Chinese  painting  ignores  it.  Gothic  and  mystical  painting  did 
without  it.  Witness  Van  Eyck  and  all  the  early  painters,  whether 
Flemings  or  Italians.  Must  I  add  that  if  it  is  not  contrary  to  the 
spirit  of  fresco,  chiaroscuro  is  not  indispensable  to  its  needs.  At 
Florence  it  begins  late,  as  it  does  everywhere  that  line  takes  pre- 
cedence of  color.  At  Venice  it  does  not  appear  till  the  time  of  the 
Bellini.  As  it  corresponds  to  quite  personal  ways  of  feeling,  it  does 
not  always  pursue  in  the  schools,  and  parallel  with  their  progress, 
a  very  regular  chronological  advance.  Thus  in  Flanders,  after  hav- 
ing had  a  presentiment  of  it  in  Memling,  it  is  seen  to  disappear  for 
half  a  century.  Among  the  Flemings  returned  from  Italy,  very 
few  adopted  it  among  those  who  nevertheless  had  lived  with  Michael 
Angelo  and  Raphael.  At  the  same  time  that  Perugino  and  Man- 
tegna  judged  it  useless  for  the  abstract  expression  of  their  ideas, 
and  continued,  so  to  speak,  to  paint  with  the  burin  of  an  engraver 
or  jeweller,  and  to  color  with  the  methods  of  a  glass  painter,  a  great 
man,  a  great  spirit,  a  great  soul,  found  in  it,  for  the  height  or  the 
depth  of  his  sentiment,  the  rarest  elements  of  expression,  and  the 
means  of  rendering  the  mystery  of  things  by  a  mystery.  Leonardo, 
to  whom,  not  without  reason,  Rembrandt  has  been  compared,  on  ac- 
count of  the  torment  that  it  caused  them  both  to  formulate  their  ideal 
sense  of  things,  —  Leonardo  is  in  fact,  in  the  midst  of  the  archaic 
period,  one  of  the  most  unexpected  representatives  of  chiaroscuro. 


THE  NIGHT  WATCH.  267 

In  the  course  of  time,  in  Flanders,  from  Otho  Voenius  we  come  to 
Rubens.  And  if  Rubens  is  a  very  great  painter  of  chiaroscuro, 
although  he  more  habitually  uses  light  than  dark,  Rembrandt  is  not 
the  less  the  definite  and  absolute  expression  for  many  reasons,  and 
not  only  because  he  uses  more  willingly  dark  than  light.  After  him 
the  whole  Dutch  School,  from  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury till  the  height  of  the  eighteenth,  the  fine  and  fruitful  school  of 
half  tints  and  narrow  lights,  moves  only  in  that  element  common 
to  all,  and  offers  so  rich  and  various  a  whole  only  because,  hav- 
ing once  admitted  this  fashion,  it  knew  how  to  vary  it  by  the  most 
delicate  metamorphoses. 

Any  other  than  Rembrandt  in  the  Dutch  School  would  sometimes 
make  one  forget  that  he  obeyed  the  fixed  laws  of  chiaroscuro ;  with 
him  this  oblivion  is  impossible ;  he  has  digested,  established,  and,  so 
to  speak,  promulgated  its  code ;  and  if  one  could  believe  in  his  doc- 
trines at  this  period  of  his  career,  when  he  was  acting  much  more 
from  impulse  than  reflection,  the  Night  Watch  would  have  redoubled 
interest,  for  it  would  take  the  character  and  the  authority  of  a 
manifesto. 

To  veil  everything,  to  immerse  everything  in  a  bath  of  shadow, 
to  plunge  the  light  itself  into  it,  to  extract  it  afterwards  in  order  to 
make  it  appear  more  distant  and  radiant ;  to  make  the  dark  waves 
revolve  around  bright  centres,  to  shade  them,  deepen  them,  thicken 
them ;  to  render  nevertheless  the  darkness  transparent,  the  half-dark- 
ness easy  to  pierce ;  to  give,  finally,  to  the  strongest  colors  a  sort  of 
penetrability,  which  prevents  their  being  black,  —  such  is  the  first 


268       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

condition,  such  are  also  the  difficulties  of  this  very  special  art.  It 
is  unnecessary  to  say  that  if  any  one  excelled  in  it,  it  was  Rem- 
brandt. He  did  not  invent,  he  perfected  everything,  and  the  method 
he  employed  oftener  and  better  than  any  one  else  bears  his  name. 

The  consequences  of  this  way  of  seeing,  feeling,  and  rendering 
the  things  of  real  life  can  be  divined.  Life  has  no  longer  the  same 
appearance.  The  edges  become  faint  or  disappear,  the  colors  are 
volatilized.  The  modelling,  no  longer  imprisoned  by  a  rigid  out- 
line, becomes  more  uncertain  in  its  touch,  more  undulating  in  its 
surfaces,  and  when  it  is  treated  by  a  learned  and  feeling  hand,  it  is 
the  most  living  and  the  most  real  of  all,  because  it  contains  a  thou- 
sand artifices,  thanks  to  which  it  lives,  so  to  speak,  a  double  life,  — 
the  life  it  has  by  nature,  and  that  which  comes  to  it  from  a  com- 
municated emotion.  To  sum  up,  there  is  a  way  of  hollowing  the 
canvas,  of  making  it  distant  or  near,  of  dissimulating,  of  showing 
and  of  drawing  the  true  in  the  imaginary,  which  is  art,  and  nomi- 
nally the  art  of  chiaroscuro. 

Because  such  a  method  authorizes  many  licenses,  does  it  result 
that  it  permits  every  liberty  ?  Neither  a  certain  relative  exactitude, 
nor  truth  of  form,  nor  its  beauty  when  it  is  sought  for,  nor  the 
permanence  of  color,  would  suffer,  if  many  principles  were  changed 
in  the  way  of  perceiving  and  translating  objects ;  on  the  contrary, 
it  must  be  said  that  among  the  great  Italians  (let  us  take  Leonardo 
and  Titian),  if  the  habit  of  introducing  much  shadow  and  very  little 
light  expressed  better  than  another  the  sentiment  they  had  to  render, 
this  way  of  working  would  not  do  the  least  harm  to  the  beauty  of  the 


THE  NIGHT  WATCH.  269 

coloring,  the  outline,  or  the  work.  It  was  one  more  lightness  in 
the  material,  like  a  more  exquisite  transparency  of  language.  The 
language  lost  nothing  by  it,  either  in  purity  or  clearness  ;  it  be- 
came in  a  certain  sort  rarer,  more  limpid,  more  expressive,  and 
more  powerful. 

Rubens  did  nothing  but  embellish  and  transform  by  numberless 
artifices  what  seemed  to  him  to  be  the  preferable  acceptation  of  life. 
And  if  his  form  is  not  more  correct,  it  is  certainly  not  the  fault 
of  the  chiaroscuro.  Heaven  knows,  on  the  contrary,  what  service 
this  incomparable  veil  has  rendered  to  his  drawing.  What  would 
he  be  without  it,  and  when  he  is  well  inspired,  what  does  he  not 
become,  thanks  to  it  ?  The  man  who  draws,  draws  still  better  with 
its  help  ;  and  he  who  colors,  colors  so  much  the  better  when  he 
makes  it  enter  his  palette.  A  hand  does  not  lose  its  form  because 
it  is  bathed  with  obscure  fluidities,  nor  a  face  its  character,  a  re- 
semblance its  exactness,  a  stuff,  if  not  its  texture,  at  least  its  appear- 
ance, a  metal  the  polish  of  its  surface  and  the  density  appropriate 
to  its  material ;  finally,  a  color  does  not  lose  its  local  tone,  that  is, 
the  very  principle  of  its  existence.  It  might  be  quite  another  thing 
and  yet  remain  as  true.  The  learned  works  of  the  Amsterdam 
School  are  a  proof  of  it.  Among  all  the  Dutch  painters,  among  all 
the  excellent  masters  of  whom  chiaroscuro  was  the  common  and 
current  language,  it  enters  into  the  art  of  painting  as  an  auxiliary, 
and  among  them  all  it  concurs  in  producing  a  whole  more  homo- 
geneous, more  perfect,  and  more  true.  From  the  works  so  pictu- 
resquely true  of  Pieter  de  Hoogh,  Van  Ostade,  Metzu,  and  Jan  Steen, 


2/0       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

to  the  loftier  inspirations  of  Titian,  Giorgione,  Correggio,  and  Ru- 
bens, everywhere  is  seen  the  use  of  half  tints,  and  the  large  shad- 
ows are  born  of  the  need  of  expressing  with  more  salience  things 
perceptible,  or  of  the  necessity  of  embellishing  them.  Nowhere 
can  they  be  separated  from  the  architectural  line  or  the  line  of 
the  human  form,  from  the  true  light  or  the  true  color  of  objects. 

Rembrandt  alone,  upon  this  point  as  upon  all  the  others,  sees, 
thinks,  and  acts  differently ;  and  I  am  not  wrong  then  in  denying 
this  eccentric  genius  the  greater  part  of  the  exterior  gifts  which 
are  the  ordinary  possession  of  the  masters,  for  I  am  doing  nothing 
but  visibly  setting  apart  the  dominant  faculty  which  he  shares  with 
no  one. 

If  you  are  told  that  his  palette  has  the  virtue  proper  to  the  opu- 
lent Flemish,  Spanish,  and  Italian  palettes,  I  have  made  you  recog- 
nize the  motives  by  which  you  are  permitted  to  doubt  it.  If  you  are 
told  that  he  has  a  swift,  adroit  hand,  prompt  in  saying  things  clearly, 
that  it  is  natural  in  its  play,  brilliant  and  free  in  its  dexterity,  I  ask 
you  not  to  believe  it  at  all,  at  least  in  presence  of  the  Night  Watch. 
Finally,  if  his  chiaroscuro  is  spoken  of  as  a  discreet  and  light  at- 
mosphere, solely  destined  to  veil  very  simple  ideas,  or  very  positive 
colors,  or  very  clear  forms,  examine  to  see  if  there  is  not  in  that  a  new 
error,  and  if  upon  this  point,  as  upon  others,  Rembrandt  has  not 
altered  the  whole  system  of  ways  of  painting.  If,  on  the  contrary, 
you  hear  it  said  that,  despairing  of  classing  him,  for  want  of  names 
in  the  vocabulary,  he  is  called  a  luminarist,  ask  what  this  barbarous 
word  signifies,  and  you  will  perceive  that  this  exceptional  term  ex- 


THE  NIGHT  WATCH. 

presses  something  very  strange  and  very  just.  A  luminarist  would 
be,  if  I  am  not  deceived,  a  man  who  would  conceive  light  outside 
of  recognized  laws,  would  attach  to  it  an  extraordinary  meaning, 
and  would  make  great  sacrifices  to  it.  If  such  is  the  meaning  of 
the  new  word,  Rembrandt  is  at  once  defined  and  judged  ;  for  under 
its  unpleasing  form  the  word  expresses  an  idea  difficult  to  render, 
a  true  idea,  a  rare  eulogium,  and  a  criticism. 

I  told  you,  apposite  to  the  Anatomical  Lecture,  —  a  picture  which 
means  to  be  dramatic,  and  is  not  so,  —  how  Rembrandt  used  the 
light  when  he  used  it  inappropriately;  this  is  to  judge  the  luminarist 
when  he  goes  astray.  I  will  tell  you,  further  on,  how  Rembrandt 
uses  light  when  he  makes  it  express  what  no  painter  in  the  world 
has  expressed  by  known  means  ;  you  can  judge  by  that  what  the 
luminarist  becomes  when  he  accosts  with  his  dark  lantern  the  world 
of  the  marvellous,  of  conscience  and  the  ideal,  and  there  he  has  no 
master  in  the  art  of  painting,  because  he  has  no  equal  in  the  art 
of  showing  the  invisible.  The  whole  career  of  Rembrandt  turns 
then  around  this  troublesome  objective  point,  to  paint  only  by  the 
help  of  light,  to  draw  only  with  light;  and  all  the  differing  judg- 
ments that  have  been  pronounced  upon  his  works,  whether  beautiful 
or  defective,  doubtful  or  incontestable,  can  be  brought  back  to  this 
simple  question,  Was  this  or  was  it  not  an  occasion  for  making 
light  an  exclusive  condition  ?  Did  the  subject  require  it,  did  it 
allow  it,  or  exclude  it  ?  In  the  first  case  the  work  results  from  the 
spirit  of  the  work  ;  infallibly  it  must  be  admirable.  In  the  second 
the  result  is  uncertain,  and  almost  invariably  the  work  is  disputable 


2/2       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

or  a  poor  success.  It  is  idle  to  say  that  light  in  the  hand  of  Rem- 
brandt is  like  a  marvellously  submissive  and  docile  instrument  of 
which  he  is  sure.  Examine  his  work  well ;  take  it  from  his  earliest 
years  to  his  latter  days,  —  from  the  St.  Simeon  at  the  Hague  to  the 
Jewish  Bride  at  the  Hoop  Museum,  and  the  St.  Matthew  at  the 
Louvre,  —  and  you  will  see  that  this  dispenser  of  light  has  not  always 
disposed  it  as  he  should,  not  even  as  he  would  have  wished;  that 
it  has  possessed  him,  governed  him,  inspired  him  to  the  point  of 
sublimity,  conducted  him  to  the  impossible,  and  sometimes  betrayed 
him. 

Explained  by  this  desire  of  the  painter  to  express  a  subject  only 
by  the  brilliancy  and  darkness  of  objects,  the  Night  Watch  has, 
so  to  speak,  no  secrets.  Everything  which  might  make  us  hesitate 
is  deducted  from  it.  The  merits  have  their  reason  for  being,  the 
errors  one  succeeds  at  last  in  understanding.  The  embarrassment 
of  the  workman  when  he  executes,  of  the  draughtsman  when  he 
constructs,  of  the  painter  when  he  colors,  of  the  costumer  when 
he  dresses,  the  inconsistency  of  the  tone,  the  ambiguity  of  the 
effect,  the  uncertainty  of  the  hour,  the  strangeness  of  the  figures, 
their  lightning-like  apparition  in  the  midst  of  darkness,  all  result 
by  chance  from  an  effect  conceived  contrary  to  probability,  pursued 
in  spite  of  all  logic  ;  an  effect  of  small  necessity,  whose  theme  was 
this,  —  to  illumine  a  true  scene  by  a  light  which  was  not  true,  that 
is  to  say,  to  give  to  a  fact  the  ideal  character  of  a  vision.  Seek 
nothing  beyond  this  very  audacious  project,  which  agreed  with  the 
aims  of  the  painter,  conflicted  with  received  renderings,  opposed  a 


THE  NIGHT  WATCH.  273 

system  to  habit,  boldness  of  spirit  to  skill  of  hand,  and  whose 
temerity  certainly  did  not  fail  to  prick  him  on  till  the  day  when,  I  be- 
lieve, insurmountable  difficulties  were  revealed  ;  for  if  Rembrandt 
solved  some  of  them,  there  were  many  he  could  not  solve. 

I  appeal  to  those  who  cannot  believe  without  reserve  in  the  infalli- 
bility of  even  the  best  minds.  Rembrandt  had  to  represent  a  com- 
pany of  men  at  arms  :  it  was  simple  enough  to  tell  us  what  they 
were  going  to  do ;  he  has  done  this  so  negligently  that  up  to  this 
time  no  one  understands  it  even  at  Amsterdam.  He  had  likenesses 
to  paint,  and  they  are  doubtful ;  costumes  in  character,  and  they  are 
for  the  most  part  apocryphal ;  a  picturesque  effect,  and  that  effect  is 
such  that  the  picture  becomes  from  it  indecipherable  ; —  the  country, 
the  place,  the  moment,  the  subject,  the  men,  the  objects,  have  dis- 
appeared in  the  stormy  phantasmagoria  of  his  palette.  Generally 
he  excels  in  rendering  life,  he  is  marvellous  in  the  art  of  painting 
fictions,  his  habit  is  to  think,  his  master  faculty  to  express  light; 
here  fiction  is  out  of  place,  life  is  wanting,  and  the  thought  redeems 
nothing.  As  to  the  light,  it  adds  still  another  inconsistency.  It 
is  supernatural,  disquieting,  artificial ;  it  radiates  from  within  out ; 
it  dissolves  the  objects  that  it  illuminates.  I  see  many  brilliant 
focuses,  but  I  do  not  see  one  object  lighted ;  it  is  neither  beautiful 
nor  true,  nor  has  it  a  purpose.  In  the  Anatomical  Lecture  the 
corpse  is  forgotten  for  a  trick  of  the  palette.  Here  two  of  the 
principal  figures  lose  their  body,  their  individuality,  and  their  human 
signification  in  the  gleam  of  an  ignis  fatuus. 

How  then  does  it  happen  that  such  a  mind  was  so  mistaken  that 

18 


2/4      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

he  did  not  say  what  he  had  to  say,  and  did  say  precisely  what  he 
was  not  required  to  say  ?  Why  is  he  who,  when  it  is  necessary, 
can  be  so  clear,  when  there  is  occasion,  so  profound,  —  why  is  he  here 
neither  profound  nor  clear  ?  Has  he  not,  I  ask  you,  drawn  better 
and  colored  better  even  in  his  own  manner  ?  As  a  portrait  painter 
has  he  not  made  portraits  a  hundred  times  better  ?  Does  the  picture 
which  occupies  us  give  even  an  approximate  idea  of  the  forces 
of  this  inventive  genius  when  he  is  peaceably  working  from  his 
inmost  recesses  ?  Finally,  his  ideas,  which  always  are  drawn,  at 
bottom,  from  the  marvellous,  as  his  Vision  of  Dr.  Faustus,  which 
appears  in  a  dazzling  circle  of  rays,  —  those  rare  ideas,  where  are 
they  in  this  ?  And  if  the  ideas  are  not  here,  why  so  many  rays  ?  I 
think  that  the  reply  to  all  these  doubts  is  contained  in  the  preceding 
pages,  if  those  pages  have  any  clearness. 

Perhaps  you  at  length  perceive,  in  this  genius  made  up  of  exclu- 
siveness  and  contrasts,  two  natures  which  up  to  this  time  have  not 
been  very  well  distinguished  from  each  other,  which  moreover  con- 
tradict each  other,  and  scarcely  ever  meet  together  at  the  same  time 
and  in  the  same  work, —  one  a  thinker  who  bends  himself  uneasily  to 
the  requirements  of  the  truth,  while  he  becomes  inimitable  when  the 
obligation  of  veracity  is  not  there  to  hamper  his  hand ;  and  the  other 
a  workman  who  can  be  magnificent  when  the  visionary  does  not 
trouble  him.  The  Night  Watch,  which  represents  him  in  a  day  of 
great  ambiguity,  cannot  be  then  the  work  of  his  thought  when  it  is 
free,  nor  the  work  of  his  hand  when  it  is  healthy.  In  a  word,  the 
true  Rembrandt  is  not  here ;  but  very  happily  for  the  honor  of  the 


THE  NIGHT  WATCH.  275 

human  mind,  he  is  elsewhere,  and  I  think  I  shall  have  diminished 
nothing  of  his  lofty  glory,  if,  thanks  to  less  celebrated  works,  which 
yet  are  superior,  I  can  show  you,  one  after  the  other,  in  all  their  bril- 
liancy, the  two  sides  of  this  great  mind. 


XIV. 

REMBRANDT    AT    THE    SIX    AND    VAN    LOON    GALLERIES.— 
REMBRANDT  AT  THE  LOUVRE. 

REMBRANDT  would  indeed  be  inexplicable,  if  one  did  not  see  in 
him  two  men  of  adverse  nature,  who  are  very  much  embarrassed  by 
each  other.  Their  force  is  almost  equal,  their  power  has  no  compari- 
son ;  as  to  their  object  it  is  absolutely  opposite.  They  tried  to  be  in 
harmoity,  and  only  succeeded  after  a  long  time  on  occasions  which 
have  Become  very  celebrated,  but  are  very  rare.  It  was  their  habit  "  to 
act  and  think  separately,  which  always  succeeded."  The  long  efforts, 
the  audacities,  the  occasional  failures,  the.  last  masterpiece  of  this 
doubly  great  man,  —  the  Syndics, — are  nothing  but  the  struggle  and 
the  final  reconciliation  of  his  two  natures.  The  Night  Watch  will  have 
given  you  an  idea  of  the  want  of  understanding  which  existed  between 
them  when  too  soon,  without  doubt,  Rembrandt  undertook  to  make 
them  labor  together  in  the  same  work.  It  remains  for  me  to  show 
you  each  in  its  domain.  In  seeing  up  to  what  point  they  are  contrary 
and  complete,  you  will  better  understand  why  Rembrandt  had  such 
difficulty  in  finding  a  work  of  mixed  character  in  which  they  could  be 
manifested  together  without  injuring  each  other. 


REMBRANDT  AT  THE  SIX  AND   VAN  LOON  GALLERIES.     277 

In  the  first  place  there  is  the  painter  whom  I  shall  call  the  exterior 
man  ;  with  a  clear  mind,  a  vigorous  hand,  and  infallible  logic,  the 
opposite  in  everything  of  the  romantic  genius  to  whom  the  admiration 
of  the  world  has  been  given  almost  entirely,  and  sometimes,  as  I  have 
just  told  you,  rather  too  promptly.  In  his  way,  at  certain  times,  the 
Rembrandt  of  whom  I  am  speaking  is  a  superior  master.  His  manner 
of  seeing  is  thoroughly  healthy,  his  way  of  painting  edifying  by  the 
simplicity  of  the  means  employed ;  his  manner  attests  that  he  wishes 
to  be  above  all  things  comprehensible  and  veracious.  His  palette  is 
wise,  limpid,  tinged  with  the  true  colors  of  the  daylight,  and  without 
cloudiness.  His  drawing  makes  you  forget  it ;  but  it  forgets  noth- 
ing. He  is  admirably  lifelike.  He  expresses  and  characterizes,  in 
their  individuality,  features,  glances,  attitudes,  and  gestures,  that  is  to 
say,  the  normal  habits  and  the  furtive  accidents  of  life.  His  execu- 
tion has  the  propriety,  breadth,  the  high  bearing,  the  firm  tissue,  the 
force  and  conciseness  proper  to  practitioners  who  are  passed  masters 
in  the  art  of  fine  language.  His  painting  is  gray  and  black,  unshin- 
ing  (mate),  solid,  and  exceedingly  thick  and  agreeable.  It  has  for  the 
eyes  the  charm  of  an  opulence  which  hides  instead  of  proclaiming 
itself,  and  of  a  skill  which  is  betrayed  only  by  outbursts  of  the  great- 
est learning. 

If  you  compare  it  to  the  paintings  of  the  same  fashion  and  th'e 
same  gamut  which  make  the  renown  of  the  Dutch  painters,  Hals  ex- 
cepted,  you  will  perceive,  by  something  more  sustained  in  the  tone,  by 
a  certain  interior  warmth  in  the  shades,  in  the  flowing  of  the  color, 
in  the  ardor  of  the  execution,  that  a  fiery  temperament  is  hidden  under 


2/8       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

the  apparent  tranquillity  of  the  method.  Something  warns  you  that 
the  artist  who  paints  thus  is  doing  his  very  best  not  to  paint  differ- 
ently ;  that  this  palette  affects  sobriety  for  the  occasion  ;  finally,  that 
this  unctuous  and  grave  material  is  much  richer  at  bottom  than  it 
appears,  and  that  if  it  were  analyzed  there  would  be  discovered  in 
it,  like  a  magnificent  alloy,  remains  of  melted  gold. 

Under  this  unexpected  form  Rembrandt  is  revealed,  every  time 
that  he  comes  out  of  himself  to  yield  to  quite  accidental  obligations  ; 
and  such  is  the  power  of  such  a  mind,  when  it  is  borne  in  sincerity 
from  one  world  to  another,  that  this  performer  of  miracles  is  one  of 
the  witnesses  most  capable  of  giving  us  a  faithful  and  a  hitherto 
unexpressed  idea  of  the  exterior  world  as  it  is.  His  works  thus 
conceived  are  few.  I  do  not  believe  —  and  the  reason  is  easy  to 
grasp  —  that  any  of  his  pictures,  I  mean  any  of  his  imaginary  or  im- 
agined works,  ever  were  clothed  in  this  relatively  impersonal  form 
and  color.  Thus  you  do  not  meet  in  him  with  this  manner  of  feeling 
and  painting  except  in  those  cases  when,  whether  from  fancy  or 
necessity,  he  subordinates  himself  to  his  subject.  In  this  may  be 
classed  certain  exceptional  portraits  disseminated  in  European  collec- 
tions, which  deserve  to  be  made  a  separate  study.  It  is  also  to 
those  moments  of  rare  abandonment  in  the  life  of  a  man  who  sel- 
dom forgot  himself,  and  only  yielded  himself  from  complacence,  that 
we  owe  the  portraits  in  the  Six  and  Van  Loon  galleries  ;  and  it  is 
to  these  perfectly  beautiful  works  that  I  should  recommend  one  to 
recur,  who  wishes  to  know  how  Rembrandt  treated  the  human  being, 
when,  for  the  reasons  that  have  been  suggested,  he  consented  to 
occupy  himself  only  with  his  model. 


REMBRANDT  AT  THE  SIX  AND    VAN  LOON  GALLERIES.     279 

The  most  celebrated  is  that  of  the  Burgomaster  Six.  It  dates 
from  1656,  the  fatal  year,  that  in  which  Rembrandt  grew  old,  became 
bankrupt,  and  retired  to  the  Roosgracht  (Rose  Canal),  saving  from 
his  prosperity  only  one  thing,  which  was  worth  it  all,  his  genius  intact. 
It  is  astonishing  that  the  burgomaster  who  had  lived  in  intimate 
familiarity  with  Rembrandt  for  fifteen  years,  and  whose  portrait  he 
had  already  engraved  in  1647,  should  have  waited  till  so  late  to  be 
painted  by  his  illustrious  friend.  Was  it  that,  while  greatly  admiring 
his  portraits,  Six  had  some  reason  to  doubt  their  likeness  ?  Did  he 
not  know  how  the  painter  had  formerly  used  Saskia,*  with  what  little 
scruple  he  had  painted  himself  already  thirty  or  forty  times  ;  and  did 
he  fear  in  his  own  representation  one  of  those  infidelities  which  he 
had  witnessed  of tener  than  any  one  else  ? 

What  is  certain  is,  that  at  this  time,  of  all  others,  and  undoubtedly 
out  of  regard  for  a  man  whose  friendship  and  patronage  had  followed 
him  in  his  ill  fortune,  Rembrandt  suddenly  mastered  himself,  as  if 
his  mind  and  his  hand  had  never  practised  the  least  deviation.  He 
is  free  but  scrupulous,  agreeable  and  sincere.  From  this  unchimeri- 
cal  person  Ke  made  an  unchimerical  picture,  and  with  the  same  hand 
that  signed  two  years  before,  in  1654,  the  Bathsheba  in  the  Lacase 
Museum,  a  rather  eccentric  study  from  the  life,  he  signed  one  of  the 
best  portraits  he  ever  painted,  and  one  of  the  finest  bits  of  execution 
that  he  ever  produced.  He  abandons  himself  more  than  he  watches 
himself ;  nature  here  directs  him.  The  transformation  he  makes  things 
undergo  is  imperceptible,  and  a  real  object  must  be  placed  near  the 

*  Saskia  Nilenburg,  Rembrandt's  first  wife. — TR. 


280       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

canvas  to  perceive  the  artifice  in  this  picture,  which  is  so  delicate  and 
so  masculine,  so  learned  and  so  natural.  The  work  is  rapid,  the 
material  rather  thick  and  smooth  ;  it  is  painted  at  once  without  use- 
less relief ;  it  is  flowing,  abundant,  a  little  faint,  and  lightly  blended 
at  the  edges.  There  is  no  too  sudden  digression,  no  abruptness,  not 
a  detail  which  has  not  its  primary  or  secondary  interest. 

A  colorless  atmosphere  circulates  around  this  personage,  viewed 
at  home,  in  his  habits  of  body,  and  his  every-day  clothes.  He  is  not 
entirely  a  nobleman,  nor  is  he  exactly  a  burgher;  he  is  a  dis- 
tinguished man,  well  dressed,  perfectly  at  ease  in  his  mien ;  his  eye 
is  steady  without  being  too  fixed,  his  face  is  calm,  his  bearing  a  little 
absent.  He  is  going  out,  his  head  is  covered,  he  is  putting  on 
gloves  of  a  grayish  color.  His  left  hand  is  already  gloved,  the  right 
is  bare ;  neither  of  them  is  finished,  and  could  not  be  more  so,  for 
the  rough  draught  is  left  with  a  definite  purpose.  Here  the  truth 
of  tone,  the  veracity  of  gesture,  the  perfect  rigor  of  form,  are  such 
that  everything  is  expressed  as  it  should  be.  The  rest  was  a  matter 
of  time  and  care,  and  I  can  reproach  neither  painter  nor  model 
for  remaining  satisfied  with  so  clever  an  almost.  The  hair  is  red, 
the  felt  hat  is  black;  the  face  is  as  true  a  likeness  in  complexion  as  in 
expression,  as  individual  as  it  is  living.  The  doublet  is  pale  gray, 
the  short  mantle  thrown  over  the  shoulder  is  red,  with  trimmings  of 
gold  braid.  Both  have  their  appropriate  color,  and  the  choice  of 
these  two  colors  is  as  subtle  as  the  relation  of  the  two  colors  is  just. 
As  moral  expression,  it  is  charming  ;  as  truth,  it  is  absolutely  sin- 
cere ;  as  art,  it  is  of  the  highest  quality. 


REMBRANDT  AT  THE  SIX  AND   VAN  LOON  GALLERIES.     281 

What  painter  would  have  been  capable  of  making  a  portrait  like 
this?  You  can  test  it  by  the  most  redoubtable  comparisons,  and 
it  resists  them.  Would  Rembrandt  himself  have  brought  to  it  so 
much  experience  and  freedom,  that  is,  such  a  harmony  of  ripe 
qualities,  before  having  passed  through  his  profound  researches,  and 
the  great  audacities  which  had  occupied  the  most  laborious  years 
of  his  life  ?  I  think  not.  No  effort  of  a  man  is  lost,  and  every- 
thing serves  him,  even  his  mistakes.  There  are  in  this  picture  the 
good  nature  of  a  mind  which  unbends  itself,  the  want  of  ceremony 
of  a  hand  which  is  resting,  and,  above  all,  that  way  of  interpreting 
life  which  belongs  only  to  thinkers  trained  to  the  loftiest  problems. 
In  this  relation,  and  remembering  the  attempts  in  the  Night  Watch, 
the  perfect  success  of  the  portrait  of  Six  is,  if  I  am  not  mistaken, 
an  unanswerable  argument. 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  portraits  of  Martin  Daey  and  his 
wife,  the  two  important  panels  which  adorn  the  grand  drawing-room 
of  the  Van  Loon  mansion,  are  worth  more  or  less  than  the  Burgo- 
master. In  any  event  they  are  more  unexpected,  and  much  less 
well  known,  the  name  of  the  personages  having,  in  the  first  place, 
been  less  of  a  recommendation.  Moreover,  they  belong  visibly 
neither  to  Rembrandt's  first  nor  to  his  second  manner. 

Much  more  than  the  portrait  of  Six  are  they  an  exception  to  the 
work  of  his  years  of  middle  life ;  and  the  need  of  classing  the 
works  of  a  master  according  to  such  and  such  an  ultra-celebrated 
picture  has  made  them,  I  think,  considered  as  canvases  without  a 
type,  and  on  this  account  they  have  been  a  little  neglected.  One 


282        THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

of  them,  that  of  the  husband,  is  dated  1634,  two  years  after  the  Ana- 
tomical Lecture;  the  other,  that  of  the  wife,  was  executed  in  1643,  a 
year  after  the  Night  Watch.  Nine  years  separate  them,  and  yet 
they  seem  to  have  been  conceived  at  the  same  time  ;  and  if  nothing 
in  the  first  recalls  the  timid,  patient,  thin,  and  yellow  period  of  which 
the  Anatomical  Lecture  remains  as  the  most  important  specimen, 
nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  in  the  second  bears  the  trace  of  the 
audacious  undertakings,  upon  which  Rembrandt  had  just  entered. 
Here,  very  briefly,  indicated  by  notes,  is  recorded  the  peculiar  value 
of  these  two  admirable  pages. 

The  husband  is  standing  facing  us,  in  a  black  doublet  and  black 
breeches,  with  a  hat  of  black  felt,  a  guipure  lace  collar  and  cuffs, 
a  knot  of  guipure  at  his  garters,  and  large  rosettes  of  the  same  on 
his  black  shoes.  He  has  his  left  arm  folded,  and  the  hand  hidden 
under  his  black  mantle,  which  is  braided  with  black  satin  ;  with 
the  right  hand  extended  forward,  he  holds  a  doeskin  glove.  The 
background  is  blackish,  the  floor  gray.  It  is  a  fine  head,  sweet  and 
grave,  rather  round,  with  handsome  eyes  looking  honestly  at  you  ; 
charming  drawing,  grand,  easy,  and  familiar,  of  the  most  perfect 
naturalness.  The  painting  is  even,  firm  at  the  edges,  of  a  consist- 
ency and  breadth  so  great  that  it  could  be  thinner  or  thicker 
without  our  expecting  more  or  less  ;  imagine  a  Dutch  Velasquez, 
more  intimate  and  more  thoughtful.  As  to  the  rank  of  the  person, 
it  is  indicated  in  the  most  delicate  manner  ;  he  is  not  a  prince, 
hardly  a  great  lord,  but  he  is  a  nobleman  of  high  birth,  fine  edu- 
cation, and  elegant  habits.  In  this  work  of  pure  good  faith  you 


REMBRANDT  AT  THE  SIX  AND   VAN  LOON  GALLERIES.     283 

find  the  race,  age,  temperament,  —  life,  in  a  word,  in  its  most  char- 
acteristic expression,  —  everything  that  had  been  lacking  in  the  Ana- 
tomical Lecture,  and  which  would  be  wanting  later  in  the  Night 
Watch. 

The  woman,  of  the  same  full-length  size,  is  placed  against  a  black- 
ish background,  upon  a  gray  floor,  and  she  also  is  dressed  all  in 
black  with  a  necklace  and  bracelet  of  pearls  ;  there  are  knots  of 
silver  lace  at  her  girdle,  and  rosettes  of  silver  lace  upon  her  deli- 
cate slippers  of  white  satin.  She  is  thin,  white,  and  tall.  Her 
pretty  head,  a  little  inclined,  gazes  at  you  with  quiet  eyes,  and  her 
complexion,  of  uncertain  color,  lends  a  more  lively  brilliancy  to  the 
warmth  of  her  reddish  hair.  A  slight  enlargement  of  the  waist, 
very  decently  expressed  under  the  amplitude  of  her  robe,  gives  her 
an  infinitely  respectable  appearance  as  a  young  matron.  Her  right 
hand  holds  a  fan  of  black  feathers  with  a  little  golden  chain  ;  the 
other,  which  hangs  by  her  side,  is  white,  slender,  and  long,  of 
exquisite  lineage. 

Black,  gray,  white,  —  nothing  more,  nothing  less  ;  and  the  whole 
tone  is  unequalled.  An  invisible  atmosphere,  and  yet  air ;  slight 
modelling,  and  yet  all  possible  relief ;  an  inimitable  manner  of  being 
precise  without  littleness,  of  opposing  the  most  delicate  work  to 
the  largeness  of  the  whole,  of  expressing  by  tone  the  luxury  and 
value  of  objects,  —  in  a  word,  a  security  of  eye,  a  sensitiveness  of 
palette,  a  certainty  in  the  hand  which  would  suffice  for  the  glory  of 
any  master,  —  these  are,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  astonishing  qualities 
obtained  by  the  same  man  who  a  few  months  before  had  signed 
the  Night  Watch. 


284       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

Was  I  not  right  in  appealing  from  Rembrandt  to  Rembrandt  ? 
If  one  were  to  suppose  in  effect  that  the  Anatomical  Lecture  and 
the  Night  Watch  were  treated  thus,  with  respect  for  necessary 
things,  for  faces,  costumes,  typical  features,  would  they  not  be  in 
this  style  of  portrait  composition  an  extraordinary  example  to  me- 
ditate upon  and  follow  ?  Did  not  Rembrandt  risk  much  in  being 
complicated  ?  Was  he  less  original  when  he  confined  himself  to 
the  simplicity  of  his  fine  method  ?  What  healthy  and  powerful 
language,  a  little  traditional,  but  entirely  his  own  !  Why  change  it 
at  all?  Had  he  then  such  pressing  need  to  create  for  himself  an 
idiom,  strange,  expressive,  but  incorrect,  which  no  one  since  has 
been  able  to  speak  without  falling  into  barbarisms?  Such  are 
the  questions  that  would  suggest  themselves  if  Rembrandt  had 
consecrated  his  life  to  painting  the  personages  of  his  time,  such 
as  Dr.  Tulp,  Captain  Kock,  the  Burgomaster  Six,  and  M.  Martin 
Daey ;  but  what  Rembrandt  cared  for  was  not  that.  If  the  painter 
of  the  outside  had  so  spontaneously  found  his  formula,  and  at  the 
first  blow,  as  it  were,  attained  his  aim,  it  was  not  the  same  with 
the  inspired  creator  that  we  are  going  to  see  at  work.  The  latter 
was  very  difficult  to  satisfy  in  a  different  way,  because  he  had 
things  to  say  which  could  not  be  treated  like  fine  eyes,  pretty 
hands,  rich  laces  upon  black  satin,  and  for  which  would  not  suffice 
a  categorical  estimate,  a  bright  palette,  a  few  frank,  clear,  and 
concise  expressions. 

Do  you  remember  the  Good  Samaritan  that  we  have  at  the 
Louvre  ?  Do  you  remember  that  half-dead  man,  bent  double, 


REMBRANDT  AT  THE  LOUVRE.  285 

supported  by  the  shoulders,  borne  by  the  legs,  shattered,  his  whole 
body  out  of  shape,  panting  with  the  movements  of  the  walkers,  his 
legs  bare,  his  feet  close  together,  his  knees  touching,  one  arm 
awkwardly  contracted  over  his  hollow  chest,  and  his  brow  enveloped 
in  a  bandage  on  which  blood  is  seen  ?  Do  you  remember  that 
small  suffering  face  with  its  half-closed  eye,  its  dim  glance,  its 
dying  expression  of  agony,  one  eyebrow  raised,  the  groaning  mouth, 
the  two  lips  separated  by  an  imperceptible  distortion  in  which  the 
wail  expires  ?  It  is  late ;  everything  is  in  shadow,  except  one  or 
two  floating  gleams,  which  seem  to  change  places  upon  the  canvas, 
so  capriciously  are  they  arranged,  so  mobile  and  light  ;  nothing 
disturbs  the  tranquil  uniformity  of  the  twilight.  Hardly  in  this 
mystery  of  the  dying  day  do  you  remark,  on  the  left  of  the  pic- 
ture, the  horse  so  beautiful  in  style,  and  the  miserable-looking  child 
standing  on  tiptoe,  peering  over  the  shoulders  of  the  animal,  with- 
out much  compassion  following  with  his  eyes  to  the  inn  this 
wounded  man  picked  up  on  the  road,  who  is  being  carefully  car- 
ried, weighing  heavily  in  the  hands  of  his  bearers,  and  groaning. 

The  canvas  is  smoky,  all  impregnated  with  sombre  gold,  very 
rich  in  the  undertones,  and  particularly  grave.  The  material  is 
muddy  and  yet  transparent ;  the  execution  is  heavy  and  yet 
subtle,  hesitating  and  resolute,  painful  and  free,  very  unequal, 
uncertain,  vague  in  some  places,  of  astonishing  precision  in  others. 
Something  invites  you  to  reflection,  and  "would  warn  you,  if  wan- 
derings of  mind  were  permissible  before  so  imperious  a  work,  that 
the  author  was  himself  singularly  attentive  and  thoughtful  when 


286      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

he  painted  it.  Stop  and  look  at  it  from  a  distance,  then  near  by ; 
examine  it  for  a  long  time.  There  is  no  apparent  outline,  not 
one  accent  given  from  routine ;  an  extreme  timidity  which  is  not 
ignorance,  and  which  comes,  one  would  say,  from  the  fear  of  be- 
ing commonplace,  or  from  the  value  the  thinker  attached  to  the 
immediate  and  direct  expression  of  life  ;  a  construction  of  objects 
which  seems  to  exist  of  itself,  almost  without  the  aid  of  the 
known  formulas,  and  renders  without  any  perceptible  medium  the 
uncertainties  and  precision  of  nature.  Naked  legs  and  feet,  of 
irreproachable  form  and  style,  cannot  be  overlooked  in  their  small 
dimensions,  any  more  than  the  legs  and  feet  of  the  Christ  can 
be  forgotten  in  Titian's  Entombment.  In  this  pale,  thin,  and 
groaning  countenance  there  is  nothing  which  is  not  an  expression, 
something  coming  from  the  soul,  from  within  out  ;  the  weakness, 
the  suffering,  and  something  of  the  sad  joy  with  which  a  man 
finds  that  he  is  self-possessed  when  he  feels  that  he  is  about  to  die. 
There  is  not  a  contortion,  not  a  feature,  which  exceeds  moderation, 
not  a  touch  in  this  manner  of  rendering  the  inexpressible  which  is 
not  pathetic  and  restrained,  and  the  whole  is  dictated  by  a  profound 
emotion,  and  translated  by  means  that  are  entirely  extraordinary. 

Look  around  this  picture,  without  any  grand  exterior,  which  is 
imposing  to  those  who  know  how  to  see,  solely  from  the  power 
of  its  general  scale  of  color ;  search  the  great  gallery,  return  even  to 
the  Salon  Carr6,  consult  the  most  powerful  and  most  skilful  painters, 
from  the  Italians  to  the  cunning  Dutchmen,  from  Giorgione  in  his 
Concert  to  Metzu  in  his  Visit,  from  Holbein  in  his  Erasmus  to 


REMBRANDT  AT  THE  LOUVRE.  287 

Terburg  and  Ostade  ;  examine  the  painters  of  sentiment,  of  physi- 
ognomy, of  attitudes,  the  men  of  scrupulous  observation  or  of  impulse ; 
discover  what  they  propose  to  themselves,  study  their  researches, 
measure  their  domain,  weigh  well  their  language,  and  ask  yourself  if 
you  perceive  anywhere  such  inwardness  in  the  expression  of  a  face, 
emotion  of  such  a  nature,  such  simplicity  in  the  way  of  feeling,  —  any- 
thing, in  a  word,  so  delicate  in  conception  and  expression,  or  which 
has  been  said  in  terms  either  more  original,  more  exquisite,  or 
more  perfect. 

Up  to  a  certain  point  that  which  makes  the  perfection  or  even 
the  strange  beauty  of  Holbein  can  be  defined.  We  can  almost  say 
to  what  attentive  and  powerful  examination  of  human  features  the 
former  owes  the  excellence  of  his  likenesses,  the  precision  of  his 
form,  the  clearness  and  rigor  of  his  language.  Perhaps  it  might 
be  suspected  in  what  ideal  world  of  high  formulas  or  dreamed- 
of  types,  Leonardo  divined  what  La  Joconde  must  be  in  herself, 
and  how  from  this  first  conception  he  drew  the  semblance  of 
his  St.  John  and  of  his  Virgins.  With  still  less  difficulty  can  be  ex- 
plained the  laws  of  drawing  among  the  Dutch  imitators.  Every- 
where Nature  is  present  to  teach  them,  sustain  them,  restrain  them, 
and  assist  their  hand  as  well  as  their  eye.  But  Rembrandt  ? 
If  his  ideal  is  sought  for  in  the  upper  world  of  forms,  it  is  per- 
ceived that  in  it  he  has  seen  only  moral  beauty  and  physical  ugliness. 
If  his  hold  upon  the  real  world  is  sought,  it  is  discovered  that  he 
excludes  from  it  everything  which  serves  other  people,  that  he  also 
knows  it  well,  but  only  half  looks  at  it,  and  that  if  he  adapts  it 


288      THE   OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

to  his  needs,  he  almost  never  conforms  himself  to  it.  Moreover,  he 
is  more  natural  than  any  one  else,  at  the  same  time  that  he  is  less 
near  to  nature,  more  familiar  while  less  literal,  more  trivial  and  quite 
as  noble,  ugly  in  his  types,  extraordinarily  fine  in  his  feeling  for 
countenances,  less  adroit  of  hand,  that  is,  less  smoothly  and  equally 
sure  of  his  work,  and  yet  of  a  skill  so  rare,  so  fruitful,  and  so  full, 
that  he  can  go  from  the  Samaritan  to  the  Syndics,  from  the  Tobias 
to  the  Night  Watch,  from  the  Joiner's  Family  to  the  portrait  of 
Six,  and  the  portraits  of  Martin  Daey  and  his  wife,  —  that  is,  from 
pure  sentiment  to  almost  pure  display,  and  from  what  is  most  in- 
timate to  what  is  most  superb. 

What  I  say  to  you  concerning  the  Samaritan  I  could  say  about 
the  Tobias,  and  with  still  more  reason  I  can  say  it  about  the 
Disciples  at  Emmaus,  —  a  marvel  undeservedly  lost  in  a  corner  of  the 
Louvre,  which  can  be  counted  among  the  masterpieces  of  the  painter. 
This  little  picture,  of  poor  appearance,  of  insignificant  arrangement, 
of  tarnished  color,  of  reserved  and  almost  awkward  execution,  would 
alone  suffice  to  establish  the  greatness  of  a  man.  Without  speak- 
ing of  the  disciple  who  understands  and  folds  his  hands,  or  of 
him  who  is  astounded,  and,  placing  his  napkin  on  the  table,  looks 
straight  at  the  head  of  Christ,  and  says  clearly  what  in  ordinary 
language  could  be  translated  by  the  exclamation  of  a  man  in  amaze- 
ment ;  without  speaking  of  the  young  servant  with  black  eyes,  who 
is  bringing  a  dish  and  sees  but  one  thing,  a  man  who  was  going 
to  eat  but  does  not  eat,  and  crosses  himself  with  contrition;  —  one 
might  retain  in  this  unique  work  only  the  Christ,  and  that  would 


REMBRANDT  AT  THE  LOUVRE.  289 

be  enough.  What  painter  has  not  made  a  Christ,  at  Rome,  Florence, 
Sienna,  Milan,  Venice,  Basle,  Bruges,  or  Antwerp?  From  Leo- 
nardo, Raphael,  and  Titian  to  Van  Eyck,  Holbein,  Rubens,  and  Van- 
dyck,  how  has  he  not  been  deified,  humanized,  transfigured,  shown 
in  his  history,  his  passion,  and  his  death?  How  have  been  re- 
cited the  adventures  of  his  terrestrial  life,  how  have  been  con- 
ceived the  glories  of  his  apotheosis  !  Has  he  ever  been  imagined 
thus  ?  Pale,  emaciated,  sitting  facing  us,  breaking  the  bread  as  on 
the  evening  of  the  Last  Supper,  in  his  pilgrim's  robe,  with  his 
blackened  lips  on  which  the  torture  has  left  its  traces,  his  great 
brown  eyes,  soft,  widely  opened,  and  raised  towards  heaven,  with  his 
cold  nimbus,  a  sort  of  phosphorescence  around  him  which  envelops 
him  in  an  indefinable  glory,  and  that  inexplicable  look  of  a  living, 
breathing  human  being  who  certainly  has  passed  through  death. 
The  attitude  of  this  divine  shade,  that  gesture  impossible  to  describe, 
surely  impossible  to  copy,  the  intense  ardor  of  his  countenance, 
whose  type  is  expressed  without  features,  and  whose  physiognomy 
depends  upon  the  movement  of  his  lips  and  glance,  —  these  things, 
inspired  no  one  knows  where,  and  produced  no  one  knows  how, 
are  all  priceless.  No  art  recalls  them;  no  one  before  Rembrandt, 
no  one  after  him,  has  expressed  them. 

Three  of  the  portraits  signed  by  his  hand,  that  our  gallery  pos- 
sesses, are  of  the  same  essence  and  of  the  same  value,  —  his  Portrait 
(No.  413  of  the  Catalogue),  the  fine  bust  of  the  Young  Man  with  the 
small  mustaches  and  long  hair  (No.  417),  and  the  Portrait  of  a 
Woman  (No.  419),  perhaps  that  of  Saskia  at  the  end  of  her  short 

19 


290      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

life.  To  multiply  examples,  that  is  to  say,  witnesses  of  his  supple- 
ness and  his  force,  of  his  presence  of  mind  when  he  is  dreaming,  of 
his  prodigious  lucidity  when  he  discerns  the  invisible,  we  must  cite 
the  Joiner's  Family,  in  which  Rembrandt  throws  himself  fully  into 
the  marvellousness  of  light,  this  time  with  great  success,  because  the 
light  is  in  the  truth  of  his  subject ;  and  especially  the  Two  Philoso- 
phers, two  miracles  of  chiaroscuro,  which  he  alone  was  capable  of 
accomplishing  upon  this  abstract  theme,  Meditation. 

Thus,  I  think,  in  a  few  and  not  the  most  celebrated  of  his  works, 
we  have  an  exhibition  of  the  unique  faculties  and  of  the  fine  manner 
of  this  great  spirit.  Note  that  these  pictures  are  of  every  date,  and 
consequently  it  is  hardly  possible  to  establish  at  what  moment  of 
his  career  he  was  most  completely  master  of  his  thought  and  of  his 
craft  as  well  as  a  poet.  It  is  positive  that  from  the  time  of  the 
Night  Watch  there  was  a  change  in  his  material  way  of  working, 
sometimes  a  progress,  sometimes  merely  a  positive  intention,  a  new 
habit ;  but  the  true  and  profound  merit  of  his  productions  has 
almost  nothing  to  do  with  the  novelties  of  his  labor.  He  returns 
elsewhere  to  his  incisive  and  light  language  when  the  need  of  saying 
profound  things  with  expression  conquers  in  his  mind  the  tempta- 
tion to  say  them  more  energetically  than  before. 

The  Night  Watch  is  dated  1642;  the  Tobias,  1637;  the  Joiner's 
Family,  1640;  the  Samaritan,  1648;  the  Two  Philosophers,  1633;  tne 
Disciples  at  Emmaus,  the  most  limpid  and  trembling  of  all,  1.648 ;  and 
if  his  portrait  was  made  in  1634,  that  of  the  Young  Man,  one  of  the 
most  finished  that  ever  came  from  his  hand,  dates  from  1658.  What  I 


REMBRANDT  AT  THE  LOUVRE.  2QI 

should  conclude,  solely  from  this  enumeration  of  dates,  is  that  six  years 
after  the  Night  Watch,  he  signed  the  Disciples  at  Emmaus  and  the 
Samaritan.  Now  when,  after  such  a  renown,  in  the  midst  of  his  glory, 
—  and  what  a  far-famed  glory,  applauded  by  some,  contradicted  by 
others,  —  a  man  can  calm  himse'f  a^d  remain  so  humble,  can  possess 
himself  sufficiently  to  turn  from  so  much  turbulence  to  so  much  wis- 
dom, it  is  because  beside  the  innovator  who  seeks  and  the  painter 
who  exerts  himself  to  perfect  his  resources,  there  exists  the  thinker 
who  pursues  his  work  as  best  he  can,  as  he  feels  it,  almost  always 
with  the  force  of  clairvoyance  which  belongs  to  brains  illuminated  by 
intuitions. 


XV. 

THE  SYNDICS. 

FROM  the  Syndics  we  learn  what  was  the  character  of  the  final 
Rembrandt.  In  1661  he  had  only  eight  more  years  to  live.  During 
these  last  years,  sorrowful,  difficult,  forsaken,  always  laborious,  his 
handling  was  to  grow  heavier,  but  his  manner  was  to  undergo  no 
further  change.  Had  it  indeed  changed  much  ?  Taking  Rembrandt 
from  1632  to  the  Syndics,  from  his  starting-point  to  his  goal,  what 
are  the  variations  produced  in  this  obstinate  genius  who  mingled  so 
little  with  others  ?  His  method  has  become  more  rapid,  his  brush 
larger,  the  paint  heavier  and  more  substantial,  the  material  (le  tuf)  of 
a  more  resisting  character.  The  strength  of  the  first  construction 
is  all  the  greater  because  the  hand  must  move  so  impetuously  over 
the  surfaces.  This  is  what  is  called  treating  a  canvas  in  a  masterly 
way,  because  really  such  elements  are  so  difficult  to  handle  that 
often,  instead  of  easily  governing  them,  a  man  becomes  their  slave, 
and  a  long  past,  full  of  successful  experiments,  is  necessary  to  enable 
one  to  use  such  expedients  without  too  great  risk. 

Rembrandt  had  attained  this  confidence  gradually,  or  rather  by 
shocks,  —  a  sudden  rush  forward  followed  by  a  recoil.  Sometimes 


THE  SYNDICS. 


293 


pictures  of  great  wisdom  were  succeeded,  as  I  have  told  you,  by 
works  wholly  lacking  in  it ;  but  finally,  after  this  long  journeying 
for  thirty  years,  he  became  satisfied  on  all  points,  and  the  Syndics 
may  be  considered  as  the  summing  up  of  his  acquisitions,  or  rather 
as  the  brilliant  result  of  his  certainty. 

They  are  portraits  grouped  in  one  frame,  not  his  best,  but  to  be 
compared  with  the  best  that  he  produced  in  his  last  years.  Unques- 
tionably they  do  not  at  all  recall  those  of  Martin  Daey  and  his  wife, 
nor  have  they  the  fresh  accent  and  the  clear  color  of  that  of  Six. 
They  are  conceived  in  the  shadowy,  tawny,  and  powerful  style  of 
the  Young  Man  at  the  Louvre,  and  are  much  better  than  the  St. 
Matthew  which  dates  from  the  same  year,  in  which  old  age  is  already 
betrayed.  The  clothes  and  felt  hats  are  black,  but  through  the 
black  a  depth  of  red  is  felt ;  the  linens  are  white,  but  strongly  glazed 
with  bistre  ;  the  faces,  which  are  wonderfully  living,  are  animated  by 
fine  luminous  and  direct  *eyes,  which  do  not  exactly  look  at  the 
spectator,  but  yet  their  glance  follows,  interrogates,  and  listens  to 
him.  They  are  individual,  and  are  likenesses.  They  are  certainly 
burghers  and  merchants,  but  notables,  assembled  in  their  own  house 
before  a  table  with  a  red  cover,  with  an  open  register  upon  it,  sur- 
prised in  full  counsel.  They  are  occupied  without  acting,  they  speak 
without  moving  their  lips.  Not  one  of  them  is  posing ;  they  are  living. 
The  blacks  are  sharp  or  indistinct ;  a  warm  atmosphere,  increased 
tenfold  in  value,  envelops  the  whole  with  rich,  grave  half-tints. 
The  relief  of  the  linens,  the  faces,  and  the  hands  is  extraordinary, 
and  the  extreme  vivacity  of  the  light  is  as  delicately  observed  as  if 


294       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

Nature  herself  had  given  its  quality  and  measure.  It  might  almost 
be  said  of  this  picture  that  it  is  one  exhibiting  the  greatest  restraint 
and  moderation,  there  is  such  exactitude  in  its  balance,  were  it  not 
that  beneath  all  this  maturity  full  of  cool  self-possession  can  be  felt 
nervous  force,  impatience,  and  fire. 

It  is  superb.  Take  several  of  the  fine  portraits  conceived  in  the 
same  spirit,  —  and  they  are  numerous,  —  and  you  will  have  an  idea  of 
what  may  be  an  ingeniously  arranged  assemblage  of  four  or  five 
portraits  of  the  first  order.  The  ensemble  is  grand,  the  work  a 
decisive  one.  It  cannot  be  said  that  it  reveals  an  abler  or  even 
a  bolder  Rembrandt,  but  it  bears  witness  that  the  seeker  has  re- 
volved the  same  problem  often  in  his  mind,  and  has  at  last  found 
the  solution. 

This  page,  moreover,  is  too  celebrated  and  too  deservedly  conse- 
crated for  me  to  emphasize  it.  What  I  hold  to  establishing  is  this  :  it 
is  at  once  very  real  and  very  imaginative,  both  copied  and  conceived, 
prudently  managed,  and  magnificently  painted.  All  Rembrandt's 
efforts  have  there  borne  fruit ;  not  one  of  his  researches  has  been  in 
vain.  What  then  did  he  propose  to  himself?  He  meant  to  treat 
living  nature  about  as  he  treated  fictions,  that  is,  by  mingling  the 
ideal  with  the  true.  By  means  of  a  few  paradoxes  he  succeeded. 
He  thus  binds  together  all  the  links  of  his  beautiful  career. 

The  two  men  who  had  long  divided  the  forces  of  his  mind  joined 
hands  in  this  hour  of  perfect  success.  He  closed  his  life  by  an 
understanding  with  himself,  and  by  a  masterpiece.  Was  he  per- 
mitted to  know  what  is  peace  of  mind  ?  The  Syndics  once  signed, 
he  might  at  least  have  believed  that  the  day  for  it  had  come. 


THE  SYNDICS.  295 

One  last  word,  to  finish  with  the  Night  Watch. 

I  have  told  you  that  the  rendering  in  this  picture  seemed  to  me 
too  real  to  admit  of  so  much  magic,  and  consequently  the  fantastic 
part  which  disturbs  it  appeared  to  me  to  be  out  of  place,  —  that,  con- 
sidered as  the  representation  of  an  actual  scene,  the  picture  does  not 
explain  itself,  and,  viewed  as  art,  it  lacks  the  ideal  resources  which 
are  the  natural  element  in  which  Rembrandt  asserts  himself  with  all 
his  merits.  I  have,  moreover,  told  you  that  an  incontestable  quality 
already  had  manifested  itself  in  this  picture,  —  the  art  of  introducing 
in  a  large  frame  and  in  a  widely  expanded  scene  a  picturesque 
novelty,  a  transformation  of  objects,  a  force  of  chiaroscuro,  the  secrets 
of  which  have  been  known  so  profoundly  to  no  one  before  or  after 
him.  I  have  dared  to  say  that  this  picture  did  not  show  that  Rem- 
brandt was  a  great  draughtsman  in  the  sense  in  which  drawing  is 
ordinarily  understood,  and  that  it  manifested  all  the  differences  which 
separate  him  from  the  great  and  true  colorists ;  I  did  not  say  the 
distance,  because  between  Rembrandt  and  the  great  masters  of  the 
palette  there  are  only  dissimilarities,  and  not  degrees.  Finally,  I 
have  tried  to  explain  why,  in  this  particular  work,  he  is  not  what 
might  be  called  a  good  workman,  and  I  have  used  his  pictures  in 
the  Louvre  and  his  portraits  of  the  Six  family  to  show  that,  when 
he  consents  to  see  nature  as  it  is,  his  method  is  admirable,  and  when 
he  expresses  a  sentiment,  even  if  that  sentiment  appears  inexpres- 
sible, his  workmanship  is  then  unrivalled.  Have  I  not  almost 
therein  traced  the  outlines  and  the  limits  of  this  great  spirit,  and 
is  it  not  easy  for  you  to  form  a  conclusion? 


296       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM   AND  HOLLAND. 

The  Night  Watch  is  an  intermediary  picture  in  his  life,  which 
divides  it  nearly  in  half,  at  least  in  the  domain  of  his  faculties.  It 
reveals  and  manifests  all  that  could  be  expected  from  so  supple  a 
genius.  It  does  not  contain  him,  nor  does  it  mark  his  perfection 
in  any  of  the  styles  he  has  treated,  but  it  makes  one  foresee  that 
in  many  of  them  he  can  be  perfect.  The  heads  in  the  background, 
and  one  or  two  faces  in  the  foreground,  show  what  the  portrait  painter 
must  be,  and  what  is  his  new  manner  of  treating  a  resemblance  by 
abstract  life,  by  life  itself.  Once  for  all,  the  master  of  chiaroscuro 
has  given  a  distinct  expression  of  that  element,  confounded  until  then 
with  many  others.  He  has  proved  that  it  exists  in  itself  independent 
of  exterior  form  and  of  coloring,  and  that  it  can,  by  force  and  variety 
in  its  usage,  by  the  power  of  its  effects,  the  number,  the  depth,  or 
the  subtlety  of  the  ideas  which  it  expresses,  become  the  principle  of 
a  new  art.  He  has  proved  that  an  overwhelming  comparison  can 
be  sustained  without  coloring,  by  the  sole  action  of  the  lights  upon 
the  shadows.  He  has  formulated  by  that,  more  decidedly  than  any 
one  else,  the  law  of  values,  and  rendered  incalculable  service  to  our 
modern  art.  His  fancy  has  been  led  astray  in  this  work,  into  com- 
monplace expression  by  his  rendering.  And  yet  the  Girl  with  the 
Cock,  apposite  or  not,  exists  to  testify  that  this  great  portrait  painter 
is,  before  all,  a  visionary  ;  that  this  very  exceptional  colorist  is,  above 
all  things,  a  painter  of  light ;  that  his  strange  atmosphere  is  the  air 
appropriate  to  his  conceptions ;  and  that  there  are,  outside  of  Nature, 
or  rather  in  her  depths,  things  that  this  pearl-fisher  alone  has  dis- 
covered. 


THE  SYNDICS.  297 

To  me  the  most  positive  thing  contained  in  this  picture  is  the  inter- 
esting testimony  it  bears  of  a  mighty  effort.  It  is  incoherent  simply 
because  it  attempts  many  contrary  results.  It  is  obscure  only  be- 
cause the  rendering  was  uncertain  and  the  conception  vague.  It  is 
violent  solely  because  the  painter's  mind  was  on  a  strain  to  compass 
it,  and  excessive  only  because  the  hand  which  executed  it  was  less 
resolute  than  it  was  bold.  We  seek  in  it  a  mystery  which  does  not 
exist.  The  sole  mystery  I  discover  in  it  is  the  eternal  and  secret 
struggle  between  the  reality,  which  asserts  itself,  and  the  truth  as 
it  is  conceived  in  a  brain  enamored  with  chimeras.  Its  historical 
importance  comes  from  the  grandeur  of  the  work,  and  the  impor- 
tance of  the  attempts  of  which  it  is  the  substance ;  its  celebrity  arises 
from  its  strangeness ;  and,  finally,  its  least  doubtful  title  comes,  not 
from  what  it  is,  but,  as  I  have  told  you,  from  what  it  affirms  and 
promises. 

A  masterpiece  has  never,  so  far  as  I  know,  been  a  faultless  work, 
but  generally  it  is  at  least  the  explicit  and  complete  exhibition  of  the 
faculties  of  a  master.  Thus  considered,  is  the  Amsterdam  picture  a 
masterpiece  ?  I  think  not.  Could  one,  having  seen  this  page  alone, 
write  a  truly  judicious  study  of  this  far-reaching  genius?  Could  his 
measure  be  taken  from  it  ?  If  the  Night  Watch  should  disappear, 
what  would  happen  ?  Would  there  be  a  void  or  an  hiatus  ?  And 
what  would  happen,  on  the  other  hand,  if  certain  pictures  or  certain 
choice  portraits  should  disappear  ?  Which  loss  would  most  diminish 
the  glory  of  Rembrandt,  and  from  which  would  posterity  really  suffer 
the  most  ?  Finally,  is  Rembrandt  perfectly  known  when  he  has 


298      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

been  seen  at  Paris,  London,  and  Dresden  ?  and  would  he  be  per- 
fectly understood  if  he  had  been  seen  only  at  Amsterdam  in  the 
picture  which  passes  for  his  master-work? 

I  think  that  the  Night  Watch  is,  like  Titian's  Assumption,  an  im- 
portant and  very  significant  page,  but  not  one  of  his  very  best 
pictures.  I  think  also,  without  any  comparison  between  the  merits 
of  the  works,  that  Veronese  would  remain  unknown  if  he  had  to 
represent  him  only  the  Rape  of  Europa,  which  is  one  of  his  most 
celebrated  pages,  and  certainly  one  of  the  most  degenerate,  —  a  work 
which,  far  from  exhibiting  an  advance,  announces  the  decadence  of 
the  man  and  the  decline  of  a  whole  school.  Thus,  it  may  be  seen, 
that  the  Night  Watch  is  not  the  only  misconception  in  the  history 
of  art. 


XVI. 

REMBRANDT. 

THE  life  of  Rembrandt  is,  like  his  painting,  full  of  half-tints  and 
dark  corners.  Often  as  he  shows  himself  as  he  was  in  the  full 
light  of  his  works,  of  his  public  and  private  life,  clear,  luminous,  and 
sparkling  with  wit,  good  humor,  and  haughty  grace  and  grandeur, 
—  equally  often  he  secretes  himself,  and  seems  always  to  be  hid- 
ing something,  whether  he  painted  or  whether  he  lived.  He  had 
no  palace  with  the  conditions  of  a  great  lord's  house,  no  train  and 
galleries  in  the  Italian  fashion,  but  a  modest  abode,  the  blackened 
house  of  a  petty  merchant,  the  interior  confusion  of  a  collector,  a 
book-hunter,  a  lover  of  prints  and  curiosities.  He  had  no  public 
business  to  draw  him  from  his  studio,  and  make  him  enter  into  the 
politics  of  his  time  ;  no  great  favor  ever  attached  him  to  any  prince. 
He  had  no  official  honors,  nor  orders,  nor  decorations,  —  nothing 
which  connects  him  closely  or  distantly  with  such  a  fact  or  with  such 
personages  as  would  have  kept  him  from  being*  forgotten ;  for 
history  in  mentioning  them  might  incidentally  have  spoken  of 
him.  Rembrandt  belonged  to  the  third  estate,  and  hardly  to  that, 
as  would  have  been  said  in  France  in  1789.  He  belonged  to  those 


300       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

crowds  in  which  individuals  are  lost,  whose  manners  are  on  a  dead 
level,  their  habits  without  any  character  to  elevate  them  ;  and  even 
in  Holland,  that  country  of  so-called  equality  in  classes,  Protestant, 
republican,  without  prejudices  of  nobility,  the  singularity  of  his  genius 
did  not  prevent  the  social  mediocrity  of  the  man  from  keeping  him 
down  in  the  obscure  layers,  and  drowning  him  in  them. 

For  a  long  time  nothing  was  known  of  him  but  from  the  testi- 
mony of  Sandrart  or  his  pupils,  —  those  at  least  who  have  written, 
Hoogstraaten  and  Houbraken ;  and  these  reports  were  reduced 
to  a  few  legends  of  the  studios,  to  doubtful  authorities,  to  too  hasty 
judgments,  and  to  gossip.  What  was  perceived  of  himself  were  his 
eccentricities,  his  manias,  a  few  trivialities,  and  certain  faults  that 
were  almost  vices.  He  was  called  interested,  grasping,  even  miserly, 
rather  disposed  to  bargain ;  and  on  the  other  hand  he  has  been 
called  dissipated,  and  disorderly  in  his  expenses,  witness  his  bank- 
ruptcy. He  had  many  pupils,  whom  he  put  into  cells  in  his  rooms 
which  were  divided  into  compartments,  watched  them  to  see  that 
between  them  was  no  contact,  no  influence,  and  drew  a  great  revenue 
from  this  mistrustful  teaching.  Some  fragments  of  oral  lessons 
are  collected  by  tradition,  which  are  truths  of  simple  good  sense, 
but  they  brought  about  no  particular  result.  He  had  not  seen  Italy, 
did  not  recommend  that  journey  ;  which  was  for  his  ex-disciples, 
become  doctors  in  aesthetics,  a  grievance  and  an  occasion  for  regret- 
ting that  their  master  had  not  added  this  necessary  culture  to  his 
healthy  doctrines  and  his  original  talent.  He  was  known  to  have 
singular  tastes,  a  love  for  old  monkish  robes,  for  Oriental  frippery, 


REMBRANDT. 


301 


for  helmets,  swords,  and  Asiatic  carpets.  Before  knowing  more 
exactly  the  detail  of  his  artistic  furniture,  and  all  the  instructive 
and  useful  curiosities  with  which  he  had  encumbered  his  house, 
it  seemed  to  be  but  a  disorder  of  fantastic  things,  belonging  to 
natural  history  and  bric-a-brac,  savage  panoplies,  stuffed  animals, 
and  dried  grasses.  It  savored  of  the  capharnaum  and  the  laboratory, 
a  little  of  occult  science  and  the  cabala;  and  this  oddity,  joined  to 
the  passion  he  was  supposed  to  have  for  money,  gave  to  the  medi- 
tative and  crabbed  face  of  this  furious  worker  the  indescribable  and 
suspicious  air  of  an  alchemist. 

He  had  a  passion  for  sitting  in  front  of  a  mirror  and  painting 
himself,  not  as  Rubens  did  in  his  heroic  pictures,  under  a  chival- 
rous exterior,  as  a  warrior  amid  a  confusion  of  epic  figures,  but 
all  alone,  in  a  little  frame,  looking  right  into  his  own  eyes,  for 
himself  alone,  and  solely  for  the  value  of  a  shimmering  light,  or 
a  more  rare  half-tint,  playing  over  the  rounded  planes  of  his  fat 
face  with  its  flushed  pulp.  He  turned  up  his  mustache,  put  air 
and  movement  into  his  curly  hair,  smiled  with  a  strong  and  ruddy 
lip  ;  and  his  little  eye,  lost  under  thick  jutting  brows,  darted  a 
singular  glance,  in  which  were  ardor,  fixity,  insolence,  and  content- 
ment. It  was  not  everybody's  eye.  The  face  had  strong  planes,  the 
mouth  was  expressive,  the  chin  wilful.  Between  his  two  eyebrows 
labor  had  traced  two  vertical  furrows,  two  swellings,  and  that  fold 
contracted  by  the  habit  of  frowning,  which  belongs  to  concentrated 
brains  which  refract  received  sensations,  and  make  an  effort  from 
without  in.  He  adorned  himself  besides,  and  travestied  himself  after 


302       THE   OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

the  fashion  of  theatrical  people.  He  borrowed  from  his  store  the 
wherewithal  to  clothe  himself,  cover  his  head,  or  adorn  himself ; 
he  put  on  turbans,  velvet  caps,  felt  hats,  doublets,  mantles,  sometimes 
a  cuirass ;  he  hooked  jewelry  into  his  headgear,  fastened  round  his 
neck  chains  of  gold  with  precious  stones :  and  when  you  get  a  little 
into  the  secret  of  his  researches,  you  begin  to  ask  if  all  this  com- 
placency of  the  painter  for  the  model  was  not  the  weakness  of  the 
man,  to  which  the  artist  lent  himself.  Later,  after  his  mature  years, 
in  his  days  of  difficulty,  he  is  seen  to  appear  in  graver,  more  modest, 
and  more  truthful  garments,  without  gold  or  velvet,  in  sombre 
raiment,  with  a  handkerchief  tied  round  his  head,  his  countenance 
saddened,  wrinkled,  emaciated,  the  palette  in  his  rough  hands.  This 
costume  of  a  man  disenchanted  was  a  new  form  which  prevailed 
with  him  when  he  had  passed  fifty  years,  but  it  only  complicates 
the  more  the  true  idea  that  one  would  like  to  form  of  him. 

All  this  together  did  not  make  a  very  harmonious  whole,  did  not 
sustain  itself,  accorded  ill  with  the  meaning  of  his  works,  the  high 
aim  of  his  conceptions,  the  profound  seriousness  of  his  habitual 
purposes.  The  outbursts  of  this  character  difficult  to  define,  the 
revealed  points  of  his  almost  unprecedented  habits,  were  relieved 
with  a  certain  sharpness  upon  the  background  of  a  dull,  neutral 
existence,  smoky  with  uncertainties  and  biographically  sufficiently 
confused. 

Since  then,  light  has  been  shed  upon  almost  all  of  the  doubtful 
parts  of  this  shadowy  picture.  Rembrandt's  history  has  been  written 
and  very  well  written  in  Holland,  and  even  in  France  after  the 


REMBRANDT.  303 

Dutch  writers.     Thanks   to  the  labors  of   one  of   his  most  fervent 
admirers,  M.  Vosmaert,  we  know  now  of  Rembrandt,  if  not  all  that 
is  necessary  to  know,  at  least  all  that  will  probably  ever  be  known  ; 
and  this  suffices  to  make  us  love,  pity,  esteem,  and  I  believe  com- 
prehend  him  well.      Considering   him   by  the   exterior,  he  was   an 
excellent  man,  loving   his  home,  his  domestic   life,  his   fireside;    a 
family  man,  with  the  nature  of  a  husband  rather  than  a  libertine; 
a  man  of  one  wife,  who  could  never  bear  either  celibacy  or  widow- 
hood,  whom   circumstances   not  wholly  explained   forced    to   marry 
three  times  ;   a  retired  man  of  course,  —  not  very  economical,  for  he 
did   not   know    how   to   balance   his   accounts ;    not   avaricious,   for 
he  became  bankrupt ;  and  if  he  spent  little  money  for  his  comfort, 
he   lavished    it  apparently  for   the  curiosities  of  his  mind ;   difficult 
to  live  with,  perhaps  suspicious,  solitary ;  —  in  everything  and  in  his 
modest   sphere  a  singular  being.      He   lived  in  no  luxury,  but   he 
had  a  kind  of   concealed  opulence,  —  treasures  buried  in  valuable 
objects  of  art,  which  caused  him  much  joy,  but  which  he  lost  in  the 
final  disaster,  and  which  under  his  eyes,  before  the  door  of  an  inn,  on 
a  truly  sinister  day,  were  sold  at  a  low  rate.    All  this  personal  property 
was  not  bric-a-brac,  as  has  been  seen  from  the  inventory  published 
at  the  time  of  the  sale,  though  posterity  occupied  itself  a  long  time 
with  it  without  understanding  it.     There  were  marbles,  Italian  pic- 
tures, Dutch  pictures,  a  great  number  of  his  own  works,  and  espe- 
cially engravings  of  the  rarest  kind,  which  he  exchanged  for  his  own, 
or  paid  dearly  for.    He  cared  for  all  these  things,  which  were  beautiful, 
curiously  collected,  and  choice,  as  the  companions  of  his  solitude, 


304       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

the  witnesses  of  his  work,  the  confidants  of  his  thought,  the  inspirers 
of  his  mind.  Perhaps  he  treasured  them  as  would  a  dilettante,  a  man 
of  erudition,  a  person  delicate  in  his  intellectual  enjoyments  ;  and 
such  was  probably  the  unaccustomed  form  of  an  avarice  whose 
intimate  meaning  was  not  understood.  As  to  his  debts  which 
crushed  him,  he  already  had  them  at  the  epoch  when,  in  a  cor- 
respondence which  has  been  preserved,  he  called  himself  rich.  He 
was  proud  enough,  and  signed  his  bills  of  exchange  with  the  care- 
lessness of  a  man  who  does  not  know  the  value  of  money,  and 
does  not  count  with  sufficient  exactness  either  what  he  possesses  or 
what  he  owes. 

He  had  one  charming  wife,  Saskia,  who,  like  a  ray  of  sunshine 
in  this  perpetual  chiaroscuro,  during  those  two  brief  years,  in  spite 
of  a  lack  of  elegance  and  very  real  charm,  put  into  them  some- 
thing of  a  more  lively  brilliancy.  What  is  wanting  to  this  gloomy 
interior,  as  to  this  labor,  morose  with  all  its  profundity,  is  expansion, 
a  little  loving  youth,  feminine  grace,  and  tenderness.  Did  Saskia 
bring  him  all  that  ?  It  cannot  be  seen  distinctly.  He  was  in  love 
with  her,  it  is  said  ;  painted  her  often,  muffled  her,  as  he  did  himself, 
in  eccentric  or  magnificent  disguises  ;  covered  her,  as  he  did  himself, 
with  I  know  not  what  luxury  of  the  moment ;  represented  her  as  a 
Jewess,  an  Odalisque,  a  Judith,  perhaps  as  a  Susanna,  and  a  Bath- 
sheba,  never  painted  her  as  she  really  was,  and  never  left  of  her  one 
portrait,  dressed  or  not,  which  was  faithful,  —  that  is,  we  prefer  to 
believe  so.  This  is  all  that  we  know  of  his  too  soon  extinguished 
domestic  joys.  Saskia  died  young,  in  1642,  the  very  year  when  he 


REMBRANDT.  305 

produced  the  Night  Watch.  The  pleasant  and  laughing  faces  of  his 
children — for  he  had  several  in  his  three  marriages  —  are  not  once 
met  with  in  his  pictures.  His  son  Titus  died  some  months  before 
him.  The  others  disappeared  in  the  obscurity  which  covered  his 
last  years  and  followed  his  death. 

It  is  known  that  Rubens,  in  his  grand  life  which  was  so  exciting 
and  always  happy,  had,  on  his  return  from  Italy,  when  he  felt  him- 
self out  of  place  in  his  own  country,  and  again  after  the  death  of 
Isabel  Brandt,  when  he  found  himself  a  widower  and  alone  in  his 
house,  a  moment  of  great  weakness,  and  something  like  a  sudden 
failing  of  power.  The  proof  of  it  is  in  his  letters.  With  Rembrandt 
it  is  impossible  to  know  what  his  heart  suffered.  Saskia  died,  and 
his  labor  continued  without  stopping  a  day ;  this  is  proved  by  the 
date  of  his  pictures,  and  better  still  by  his  etchings.  His  fortune 
crumbled,  he  was  dragged  into  the  Insolvent  room,  everything  he 
loved  was  taken  from  him ;  he  took  his  easel,  installed  himself  else- 
where, and  neither  his  contemporaries  nor  posterity  have  heard  a 
cry  or  a  complaint  from  this  strange  nature,  that  might  have  been 
believed  to  be  wholly  overwhelmed.  His  productiveness  neither 
weakens  nor  declines.  Favor  abandons  him  with  fortune,  happi- 
ness, and  comfort;  he  replies  to  the  injustice  of  Fate  and  the  un- 
faithfulness of  opinion  by  the  portrait  of  Six,  and  the  Syndics,  not 
to  speak  of  the  Young  Man  at  the  Louvre,  and  ever  so  many  others 
classed  among  his  most  composed,  most  satisfying  and  vigorous 
works.  During  his  mourning,  in  the  midst  of  humiliating  misfor- 
tunes, he  preserved  a  strange  impassibility,  which  would  be  wholly 


306       THE   OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

inexplicable  if  it  were  not  known  what  is  the  capability,  as  a  moving 
spring  to  produce  indifference  or  prompt  forgetfulness,  of  a  soul 
occupied  with  profound  views. 

Had  he  many  friends  ?  It  is  not  thought  that  he  had.  It  is  certain 
that  he  did  not  have  all  those  he  deserved  to  have,  —  not  Vondel,  who 
himself  was  a  familiar  friend  of  the  house  of  Six  ;  nor  Rubens,  whom 
he  knew  well,  who  came  to  Holland  in  1636,  visited  all  the  celebrated 
painters,  Rembrandt  alone  excepted,  and  died  in  the  year  preceding 
the  Night  Watch,  without  the  name  of  Rembrandt  figuring  either 
in  his  letters  or  his  collections.  Was  he  honored,  much  surrounded, 
very  well  known  ?  Not  at  all.  When  he  is  spoken  of  in  the  Apologies, 
in  the  writings,  in  the  little  fugitive  poems,  made  for  an  occasion  in 
his  time,  it  is  under  orders,  rather  from  a  spirit  of  justice,  as  if  by 
chance,  and  without  great  warmth.  The  literary  men  had  other 
preferences,  after  whom  came  Rembrandt,  the  only  one  of  all  who 
was  illustrious.  In  official  ceremonies,  in  the  great  days  of  pomp 
of  all  kinds,  he  was  forgotten,  or,  so  to  speak,  he  was  never  seen 
anywhere  in  the  front  ranks  or  on  the  platforms. 

In  spite  of  his  genius,  his  glory,  the  prodigious  infatuation  which 
attracted  painters  to  him  in  the  beginning,  what  was  called  society 
was,  even  at  Amsterdam,  a  social  circle  which  perhaps  half  opened 
its  doors  to  him,  but  to  which  he  never  belonged.  His  portraits 
recommended  him  no  better  than  his  person.  Although  he  had 
made  magnificent  ones  of  people  of  distinction,  they  were  not  those 
pleasant,  natural,  lucid  works  which  could  give  him  a  position  in  a 
certain  kind  of  society,  would  be  appreciated  there,  and  give  him 


REMBRANDT.  307 

admittance  to  it.  I  have  told  you  that  Captain  Kock,  who  figures  in 
the  Night  Watch,  consoled  himself  later  with  Van  der  Heist ;  as  to 
Six,  —  a  young  man  in  relation  to  Rembrandt,  and  who,  I  insist  upon 
believing,  only  let  himself  be  painted  because  he  could  not  help  it,  — 
when  Rembrandt  went  to  the  house  of  this  official  personage,  he 
went  rather  to  see  the  Burgomaster  and  Mecaenas  than  a  friend. 
From  habit  and  preference,  he  consorted  with  people  of  low  rank, 
shopmen,  and  petty  citizens.  His  associations  have  been  even  too 
much  vilified;  they  were  very  humble,  but  not  degrading,  as  has 
been  said.  He  has  even  been  occasionally  reproached  with  having 
drunken  habits  (though  he  hardly  ever  frequented  drinking-houses, 
which  was  rare  at  that  time),  because,  ten  years  after  the  loss  of  his 
wife,  people  thought  they  perceived  that  this  lonely  man  had  some 
suspicious  relations  with  his  serving-maid. 

The  servant  was  reprimanded,  and  Rembrandt  passably  condemned. 
Moreover,  at  that  moment  everything  went  ill,  fortune  as  well  as 
honor ;  and  when  he  left  the  Breestraat,  homeless,  penniless,  but  at 
quits  with  his  creditors,  neither  his  talent  nor  his  acquired  glory 
sustained  him.  His  trace  was  lost,  he  was  forgotten,  and  for  the 
time  he  disappeared  in  the  lowly,  needy,  and  obscure  life  from  which, 
to  tell  the  truth,  he  had  never  issued. 

In  everything,  as  can  be  seen,  he  was  a  man  apart,  a  dreamer ; 
perhaps  a  silent  man,  although  his  face  says  the  contrary ;  possibly 
an  angular  character,  rather  rough,  unbending,  cutting,  not  pleasant 
to  contradict,  still  less  to  convince  ;  vacillating  at  bottom,  stiff  in 
his  manner,  undoubtedly  peculiar.  If  he  was  celebrated  and  cher- 


308       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

ished  and  praised  at  first,  in  spite  of  the  jealous  and  short-sighted, 
the  pedants  and  the  fools,  they  well  revenged  themselves  when  he 
was  no  longer  there. 

In  his  execution  he  neither  painted,  drew,  nor  engraved  like  any 
one  else.  His  works  were,  even  in  their  methods,  enigmas.  He 
was  admired  not  without  disquietude,  he  was  followed  without  being 
very  well  understood.  It  was  especially  at  his  work  that  he  seemed 
like  an  alchemist.  Seeing  him  at  his  easel,  with  a  palette  that  must 
certainly  have  been  daubed,  from  which  came  so  much  heavy  paint, 
and  whence  escaped  so  many  subtle  essences  ;  or  leaning  over  his 
copperplates,  and  using  his  burin  contrary  to  all  rules,  —  one  would 
seek,  at  the  tip  of  his  burin  or  his  brush,  secrets  which  came  from 
much  farther  off.  His  manner  was  so  novel  that  it  confounded 
the  strong  minds,  and  filled  with  enthusiasm  the  simple  spirits. 
All  the  young,  enterprising,  insubordinate,  and  giddy  scholars  in 
painting  ran  after  him.  His  immediate  pupils  were  mediocre, 
their  followers  were  detestable.  A  striking  thing  resulted  from  the 
teaching  in  cells  of  which  I  have  spoken ;  not  one  kept  his  indepen- 
dence. They  imitated  him  as  no  master  was  ever  imitated  by  servile 
copyists,  and  it  is  evident  took  from  him  only  the  worst  of  his 
methods. 

Was  he  learned  and  cultivated  ?  Was  he  even  a  man  of  any  read- 
ing ?  Because  he  had  a  taste  for  theatrical  effects,  and  touched 
upon  history,  mythology,  and  Christian  dogmas,  people  say  he  was. 
It  is  said  that  he  was  not,  because  the  examination  of  his  furniture 
revealed  innumerable  engravings  and  almost  no  books.  Was  he. 


REMBRANDT.  309 

in  fine,  a  philosopher,  as  the  word  philosopher  is  understood  ?  What 
did  he  gain  from  the  movement  of  reform  ?  Did  he,  as  has  been  main- 
tained in  our  day,  contribute  his  part  as  an  artist  towards  destroying 
dogmas,  and  revealing  the  purely  human  sides  of  the  Gospel  ?  Did 
he  pronounce  his  opinion  intentionally  upon  the  political,  religious, 
and  social  questions  which  had  turned  his  country  upside  down  for 
so  long,  and  which  very  fortunately  were  finally  solved  ?  He  painted 
mendicants,  the  disinherited  and  beggars,  even  more  than  rich  men, 
Jews  oftener  than  Christians  ;  does  it  follow  that  he  had  for  the 
wretched  classes  anything  but  purely  picturesque  predilections  ?  All 
this  is  more  than  conjectural,  and  I  do  not  see  the  necessity  of  sift- 
ing farther  a  subject  already  so  profound,  and  adding  another  to  so 
many  hypotheses. 

The  fact  is,  that  it  is  difficult  to  isolate  him  from  the  intellectual 
and  moral  movement  of  his  country  and  his  time,  which  he  breathed 
in  the  seventeenth  century  in  Holland  as  he  did  the  native  air  on 
which  he  lived.  Had  he  come  earlier,  he  would  have  been  inexpli- 
cable ;  had  he  been  born  anywhere  else,  he  would  play  still  more 
strangely  this  r61e  of  a  comet  outside  of  the  axis  of  modern  art, 
which  has  been  attributed  to  him ;  had  he  come  later,  he  would  have 
no  longer  the  immense  merit  of  closing  a  past,  and  opening  one 
of  the  great  gates  of  the  future.  In  every  relation  he  has  deceived 
many  people.  As  a  man  he  was  lacking  in  exterior,  whence  it  has 
been  concluded  that  he  was  coarse.  As  a  student  he  has  dis- 
turbed more  than  one  system,  whence  it  has  been  concluded  that 
he  was  wanting  in  taste.  As  an  artist  loving  the  beautiful,  he  has 


310      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

given  of  the  things  of  the  earth  some  very  ugly  ideas.  It  has  not 
been  remarked  that  he  was  looking  elsewhere.  In  short,  greatly 
as  he  was  praised,  wickedly  as  he  was  vilified,  unjustly  as  he  was 
esteemed,  for  good  or  for  evil,  or  contrary  to  his  nature,  no  one 
exactly  suspected  his  true  grandeur. 

Observe  that  he  is  the  least  Dutch  of  the  Dutch  painters,  and  that 
if  he  belongs  to  his  time,  he  does  not  wholly  belong  to  it.  What  his 
compatriots  observed  he  did  not  see ;  to  that  from  which  they  turned 
aside,  he  returned.  They  had  bidden  farewell  to  the  fable,  and  he 
came  back  to  it ;  to  the  Bible,  and  he  illustrated  it ;  to  the  Gospels, 
and  he  delighted  in  them.  He  clothes  them  in  his  own  way,  but  he 
extracts  from  them  a  meaning  unique,  new,  and  universally  intelligi- 
ble. He  dreams  of  St.  Simeon,  of  Jacob  and  Laban,  of  the  Prodigal 
Son,  of  Tobias,  the  Apostles,  the  Holy  Family,  King  David,  Calvary, 
the  Samaritan,  Lazarus,  and  the  Evangelists.  He  wanders  around 
Jerusalem  and  Emmaus,  ever,  as  one  feels,  attracted  by  the  syna- 
gogue. These  consecrated  themes  he  sees  appear  in  nameless  sur- 
roundings, in  meaningless  costumes.  He  conceives  them,  formulates 
them,  with  as  little  care  for  tradition  as  slight  regard  for  local  truth. 
And  still,  such  is  his  creative  force,  that  this  mind,  so  individual 
and  personal,  gives  to  the  subjects  it  treats  a  general  expression,  an 
intimate  and  typical  meaning,  which  the  grand  epic  thinkers  and 
draughtsmen  do  not  always  attain. 

Somewhere  in  this  study  I  have  said  that  his  principle  was  to 
extract  from  things  one  element  among  all  others,  or  rather  to 
abstract  them  all  to  seize  one  expressly.  He  has  thus,  in  all  his 


REMBRANDT,  3 1 1 

works,  performed  the  labor  of  an  analyzer,  a  distiller,  or,  to  speak 
more  nobly,  of  a  metaphysician,  rather  than  a  poet.  Never  did 
reality  seize  him  as  a  whole.  To  see  the  way  in  which  he  treated 
bodies,  one  might  doubt  the  interest  he  took  in  their  envelope.  He 
loved  women,  and  has  seen  them  only  deformed ;  he  loved  the  tissues, 
and  did  not  imitate  them  ;  but  in  return,  in  spite  of  lack  of  grace, 
beauty,  pure  lines,  and  delicacy  of  flesh,  he  expressed  the  naked  body 
by  suppleness,  roundness,  elasticity,  with  a  love  for  substances,  a 
feeling  for  the  living  being,  which  are  the  delight  of  artist  workmen. 
He  decomposed  and  reduced  everything,  color  as  well  as  light,  so  that, 
while  eliminating  from  appearances  everything  that  is  manifold,  con- 
densing what  is  scattered,  he  succeeded  in  drawing  without  outlines, 
in  painting  a  portrait  almost  without  apparent  features,  in  coloring 
without  color,  in  concentrating  the  light  of  the  solar  system  into  a 
ray.  It  is  not  possible  in  a  plastic  art  to  push  farther  the  curiosity 
of  a  being  about  itself.  For  physical  beauty  he  substitutes  moral 
expression  ;  for  the  imitation  of  things,  their  almost  entire  meta- 
morphosis ;  for  examination,  psychological  speculations ;  for  clear, 
learned,  or  simple  observation,  the  perceptions  of  a  visionary,  and 
apparitions  so  real  that  he  is  the  dupe  of  them  himself.  By  this 
faculty  of  second  sight,  thanks  to  his  somnambulistic  intuition,  in 
the  supernatural  he  sees  farther  than  any  one  soever.  Life  he  per- 
ceives in  a  dream,  as  an  accent  of  the  other  world  which  renders  real 
life  almost  cold,  and  makes  it  seem  pale.  See  at  the  Louvre  his 
Portrait  of  a  Woman,  two  paces  from  Titian's  Mistress.  Compare 
the  two  beings,  interrogate  well  the  two  paintings,  and  you  will  un- 


312       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

derstand  the  difference  of  the  two  brains.  His  ideal,  as  in  a  dream 
pursued  with  closed  eyes,  is  light ;  the  nimbus  around  objects,  phos- 
phorescence on  a  black  ground.  It  is  fugitive,  uncertain,  formed  of 
imperceptible  lineaments,  all  ready  to  disappear  before  they  are  fixed, 
ephemeral  and  dazzling.  To  arrest  the  vision,  place  it  upon  canvas, 
give  it  its  form  and  relief,  preserve  its  fragile  texture,  give  it  its  bril- 
liancy, and  let  the  result  be  a  strong,  masculine,  and  substantial  paint- 
ing, as  real  as  any  other,  which  would  resist  contact  with  Rubens, 
Titian,  Veronese,  Giorgione,  Vandyck,  —  this  is  what  Rembrandt 
attempted.  Did  he  accomplish  it  ?  Universal  testimony  is  there 
to  say. 

One  last  word.  Proceeding  as  he  proceeded  himself,  by  extracting 
from  this  work,  so  vast  and  of  such  manifold  character,  what  repre- 
sents him  in  his  principle,  reducing  it  to  its  natural  elements,  elimi- 
nating his  palette,  his  brushes,  his  coloring  oils,  his  glazings,  his  thick 
paints,  all  the  mechanism  of  the  painter,  one  might  finally  come  to 
where  he  could  seize  the  primal  essence  of  the  artist  in  the  engraver. 
Rembrandt  is  wholly  to  be  found  in  his  etchings.  His  spirit,  ten- 
dency, imaginations,  reveries,  good  sense,  chimeras,  difficulties  in  ren- 
dering the  impossible,  realities  in  the  nothings,  are  revealed  by  twenty 
of  his  etchings  ;  they  give  one  a  presentiment  of  the  painter,  and, 
better  still,  explain  him.  There  is  the  same  workmanship,  the  same 
purpose,  the  same  neglect,  the  same  persistency,  the  same  singularity 
in  execution,  the  same  tormenting  and  sudden  success  by  expression. 
Confronting  them  closely,  I  see  no  difference  between  the  Tobias  at 
the  Louvre  and  an  engraved  plate.  There  is  no  one  who  does  not 


REMBRANDT.  313 

set  this  engraver  above  all  others.  Without  going  so  far,  when  it  is 
a  question  of  his  painting,  it  would  be  well  to  think  often  of  the  Hun- 
dred Florin  Piece,  when  one  fails  to  understand  him  in  his  pictures. 
It  would  then  be  seen  that  all  the  dross  of  this  art,  one  of  the  most 
difficult  in  the  world  to  purify,  alters  nothing  of  the  incomparably 
beautiful  flame  which  burns  within ;  and  I  think  that  finally  every 
name  that  has  been  given  to  Rembrandt  would  be  altered  to  give 
him  opposite  names. 

In  truth,  his  was  a  brain  served  by  an  eye  that  could  see  at  night, 
and  by  an  able  hand  with  no  great  dexterity.  This  painful  labor 
came  from  an  agile  and  free  mind.  This  man  of  no  account ;  this 
ferreter,  this  costumer,  this  erudite  being  nourished  on  extravagances  ; 
this  man  of  the  lower  levels,  of  so  lofty  a  flight ;  this  moth  nature, 
which  flies  to  whatever  shines;  this  soul,  so  sensitive  to  certain  forms 
of  life,  so  indifferent  to  others  ;  this  ardor  without  tenderness,  this 
lover  without  visible  flame ;  this  nature  of  contrasts,  contradictions, 
and  double  meanings,  moved  and  eloquent,  loving  and  not  very  lov- 
able ;  this  disgraced  man  so  well  endowed  ;  this  pretended  materialist ; 
this  trivial,  hideous  person,  —  was  a  pure  spiritualist,  or,  to  express  it 
in  a  single  word,  an  idealist ;  I  mean,  a  spirit  whose  domain  is  that 
of  ideas,  and  whose  language  is  the  language  of  ideas.  The  key  of 
the  mystery  is  there. 

Taken  thus,  Rembrandt  is  wholly  explained  ;  his  life,  his  work, 
his  leanings,  his  conceptions,  his  poetry,  his  methods,  his  way  of 
working,  even  to  the  color  of  his  painting,  which  is  only  a  bold  and 
studied  spiritualization  of  the  material  elements  of  his  art. 


PART    III. 


BELGIUM. 


BELGIUM. 


THE  VAN   EYCKS  AND   MEMLING. 

BRUGES. 

I  AM  returning  by  way  of  Ghent  and  Bruges.  It  is  here  that 
logically  I  should  have  started  if  I  had  thought  of  writing  an  accu- 
rate history  of  the  schools  of  the  Low  Countries  ;  but  the  chronologi- 
cal order  is  not  of  much  account  in  these  studies,  which  have,  you 
perceive,  neither  plan  nor  method.  I  am  ascending  the  stream  instead 
of  descending  it.  I  have  followed  its  course  irregularly,  with  some 
negligence  and  many  omissions.  I  have  even  quitted  it  far  from  its 
mouth,  and  have  not  shown  you  how  it  finishes ;  for  after  a  certain 
point  it  ends,  and  is  lost  in  insignificance.  Now  I  like  to  think  that 
I  am  at  the  source,  and  that  I  am  about  to  see  the  gushing  of  that 
first  flood  of  crystalline  and  pure  inspiration,  whence  issued  the  vast 
movement  of  art  in  the  North. 

For  other  countries,  other  times,  other  ideas,  I  leave  Amsterdam 
and  the  seventeenth  century  in  Holland.  I  leave  the  school  after  its 
great  renown  ;  let  us  suppose  that  it  is  about  1670,  two  years  before 
the  assassination  of  the  brothers  De  Witt,  and  the  hereditary  stadt- 
holdership  of  the  future  King  of  England,  William  III.  At  this  date, 


3l8        THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

of  all  the  fine  painters  whose  birth  we  have  seen  in  the  first  thirty 
years  of  the  century,  who  remain  ?  The  great  ones  preceding  Rem- 
brandt or  closely  following  him  are  dead,  or  about  to  die.  Those 
who  remain  are  old  men  at  the  end  of  their  career.  In  1683,  except 
Van  der  Heyden  *  and  Van  der  Neer,f  who  represent  alone  an  ex- 
tinct school,  not  one  survives.  It  is  the  reign  of  such  as  Tempesta,$ 
Mignon,§  Netscher,||  Lairesse,^]"  and  Van  der  Werff.**  All  is  over. 
I  pass  through  Antwerp.  I  see  once  more  Rubens  imperturbable 
and  replete,  like  a  great  mind  which  contains  in  itself  good  and  evil 
progress  and  decline,  who  terminates  in  his  own  life  two  epochs,  the 
preceding  and  his  own.  After  him  I  see,  as  after  Rembrandt,  those 
who  poorly  understand  him,  have  not  strength  enough  to  follow  him, 
and  who  question  him.  Rubens  helps  me  to  pass  from  the  seven- 
teenth to  the  sixteenth  century.  We  no  longer  have  Louis  XIII. 
nor  Henri  IV.,  nor  the  Infanta  Isabella,  nor  the  Archduke  Albert ; 
nor  even  have  we  the  Duke  of  Parma,  nor  the  Duke  of  Alva,  nor 
Philip  II.,  nor  Charles  V.  We  ascend  still  through  politics,  man- 
ners, and  painting.  Charles  V.  is  not  born,  nor  near  birth  ;  nor  is  his 

*  Jan  van  der  Heyden,  an  architectural  painter  who  finished  pictures  with  exquisite 
care.  —  TR. 

t  Aart  van  der  Neer,  a  Dutch  landscape  painter  who  excelled  in  moonlights  and  con- 
flagrations. —  TR. 

J  Peter  Molyn,  called  Tempesta  from  his  pictures  of  sea  storms.  He  was  also  a  good 
painter  of  wild  animals.  Haarlem,  1637-1701.  —  TR. 

§  Abraham  Mignon,  Frankfort,  1639-1697 ;  an  inferior  painter  of  flowers,  insects, 
fruits,  etc.  —  TR. 

||  Caspar  Netscher,  Heidelberg,  1639-1684  ;  an  imitator  of  Terburg  and  Metzu ;  a  fig- 
ure and  genre  painter  who  excelled  in  portraits.  —  TR. 

1T  Gerard  Lairesse,  called  the  Poussin  of  Belgium,  born  at  Liege,  1640-1711.  —  TR. 

**  Adrian  van  der  Werff,  Rotterdam,  1659-1722 ;  an  ideal  painter,  smooth  and  care- 
ful in  execution.  —  TR. 


THE    VAN  EYCKS  AND  MEMLING.  319 

father.  His  grandmother,  Marie  de  Burgundy,  is  a  young  girl, 
twenty  years  old,  and  his  great-grandfather,  Charles  the  Bold,  has 
just  died  at  Nancy,  when  at  Bruges,  by  a  series  of  unparalleled  mas- 
terpieces, comes  to  an  end  this  astonishing  period  comprised  be- 
tween the  beginning  of  the  Van  Eycks  and  the  disappearance  of 
Memling,  or  at  least  his  presumed  departure  from  Flanders.  Placed 
as  I  am  between  the  two  towns,  Ghent  and  Bruges,  between  the 
two  names  that  make  them  most  illustrious  by  the  novelty  of  their 
attempts,  and  the  pacific  bearing  of  their  genius,  I  am  between  the 
modern  world  and  the  Middle  Ages  ;  and  I  am  in  the  midst  of 
memories  of  the  little  Court  of  France,  and  the  great  Court  of  Bur- 
gundy, —  with  Louis  XL,  who  wishes  to  make  a  France ;  with  Charles 
the  Bold,  who  dreams  of  unmaking  it  ;  with  Commines,  the  diplo- 
mate-historian,  who  passes  from  one  house  to  the  other.  I  am  not 
to  speak  to  you  of  these  times  of  violence  and  stratagem,  of  cun- 
ning in  policy,  of  savageness  in  action,  of  perfidies,  treasons,  oaths 
sworn  and  violated,  revolts  in  towns,  massacres  upon  the  battle-field, 
democratic  efforts,  and  crushing  feudalism,  of  intellectual  semi-cul- 
ture, of  unheard-of  ostentation.  Recall  this  high  Burgundian  and 
Flemish  society, —  that  Court  of  Ghent,  so  luxurious  in  its  habits,  so 
refined  in  its  elegance,  so  careless,  so  brutal,  so  unclean  at  bottom, 
so  superstitious  and  dissolute,  pagan  in  its  festivals,  and  bigoted 
through  it  all.  See  the  ecclesiastical  pomps,  the  princely  pageants, 
the  holidays,  the  carousals,  their  feasts  and  their  drinkings,  their 
scenic  representations,  and  their  license  ;  the  gold  of  chasubles, 
the  gold  of  armor,  the  gold  of  tunics,  jewels,  pearls,  and  diamonds ; 


320       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

imagine  below  this  the  condition  of  souls ;  and  of  this  picture  which 
is  no  longer  to  be  painted,  retain  but  one  feature,  which  is,  that 
the  greater  part  of  the  primordial  virtues  were  wanting  at  that 
time  to  the  human  conscience,  —  straightforwardness,  sincere  respect 
for  sacred  things,  the  sentiments  of  duty  and  of  country,  and  among 
women  as  among  men,  modesty.  This  especially  must  be  remem- 
bered when  in  the  midst  of  this  brilliant  and  frightful  society  is 
seen  to  blossom  the  unexpected  art  which  it  seems  was  to  represent 
its  moral  foundation  and  its  surface. 

In  1420  the  Van  Eycks  established  themselves  at  Ghent.  Hubert, 
the  elder,  put  his  hand  to  the  grand  triptych  of  St.  Bavon  ;  he 
conceived  the  idea  of  it,  arranged  the  plan,  executed  a  part  of  it,  and 
died  at  his  task  about  1426.  Jan,  his  younger  brother  and  his 
pupil,  pursued  the  labor,  finished  it  in  1432,  founded  at  Bruges  the 
school  which  bears  his  name,  and  died  there  in  1440,  on  the  9th 
of  July.  In  twenty  years  the  human  mind,  represented  by  these 
two  men,  found  in  painting  the  most  ideal  expression  of  its  beliefs, 
the  most  characteristic  expression  of  countenances,  not  the  most 
noble,  but  the  first  correct  manifestation  of  bodies  in  their  exact 
forms,  the  first  image  of  the  sky,  the  air,  the  country,  clothes,  and 
exterior  richness  made  by  true  colors  ;  it  created  a  living  art,  invented 
or  perfected  its  mechanism,  fixed  its  language,  and  produced  imper- 
ishable works.  Everything  there  was  to  do  was  done.  Van  der  Wey- 
den*  has  no  other  historical  importance  but  that  he  attempted  at 

*  Roger  van  der  Weyden,  pupil  of  Jan  van  Eyck,  who  flourished  in  the  fifteenth 
century  ;  official  painter  to  the  city  of  Brussels.  He  represented  the  symbolic  subjects 
of  the  Middle  Ages. — TR. 


THE    VAN  EYCKS  AND  MEMLING.  321 

Brussels  what  was  marvellously  accomplished  at  Ghent  and  Bruges, 
and  then  passed  later  into  Italy,  to  popularize  there  th'e  Flemish 
way  of  working,  and  the  Flemish  spirit  ;  but  his  especial  renown  is 
that  he  left  among  his  works  a  masterpiece  which  is  unique,  —  I  mean 
a  pupil,  who  is  called  Memling. 

Whence  came  the  Van  Eycks,  when  they  were  seen  to  establish 
themselves  at  Ghent,  in  the  midst  of  a  corporation  of  painters  which 
already  existed  ?  What  did  they  bring  there  ?  What  did  they  find 
there?  What  is  the  importance  of  their  discoveries  in  the  use  of 
oil  colors  ?  What  was  finally  the  part  of  each  of  the  brothers  in  that 
imposing  page,  the  Adoration  of  the  Paschal  Lamb  ?  All  these  ques- 
tions have  been  propounded,  learnedly  discussed,  poorly  answered. 
What  is  probable  as  to  their  collaboration  is  that  Hubert  was  the 
inventor  of  the  work  ;  that  he  painted  the  upper  parts  of  it,  the  great 
figures,  —  God  the  Father,  the  Virgin,  and  St.  John,  certainly  also  the 
Adam  and  Eve  in  their  minute  and  hardly  decent  nudity.  He  con- 
ceived the  feminine,  and  especially  the  masculine  type  which  after- 
wards served  his  brother.  He  put  heroic  beards  upon  countenances 
which  in  the  society  of  his  day  wore  none ;  he  designed  these  full 
ovals,  with  their  protruding  eyes,  their  fixed  look,  both  gentle  and 
untamed,  their  curled  hair,  their  haughty  and  sullen  mien,  their  vio- 
lent lips,  —  in  fine,  all  those  characters,  half  Byzantine,  half  Flemish, 
which  are  so  strongly  marked  with  the  spirit  of  the  time  and  place. 
God  the  Father,  with  his  sparkling  tiara,  with  falling  ribbons,  his 
hierarchical  attitude,  his  sacerdotal  robes,  is  still  the  double  repre- 
sentation of  the  divine  idea  as  it  was  presented  upon  earth  in 


322       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

its  two  redoubtable  personifications,  the  Empire  and  the  Pon- 
tificate. 

Already  the  Virgin  has  the  hooked  mantle,  the  adjusted  garments, 
the  round  forehead,  the  very  human  character,  and  the  physiognomy, 
wholly  without  grace,  that  Jan  some  years  later  will  give  to  all  his 
Madonnas.  The  St.  John  has  neither  rank  nor  type  in  the  social 
scale  whence  this  painter-observer  took  his  forms.  He  is  a  man 
of  no  particular  class,  thin,  long,  even  sickly ;  a  man  who  has  suf- 
fered, languished,  fasted,  something  like  a  vagabond.  As  to  our 
first  parents,  they  must  be  seen  in  the  original  panels,  which  appeared 
too  slightly  clothed  for  a  chapel,  and  not  in  the  copy  at  St.  Bavon, 
which  is  still  more  curious  on  account  of  the  black  leather  aprons 
in  which  they  are  dressed.  It  must  be  well  understood  that  you 
will  find  nothing  in  them  which  recalls  the  Sistine  Chapel  or  the 
Loggie.  They  are  two  savages,  horribly  hairy,  both  going  forth 
without  being  intimidated  by  any  feeling  of  their  own  ugliness,  from 
I  know  not  what  primitive  forests,  hideous,  swollen  in  body,  thin  in 
the  legs ;  Eve  bearing  about  her  the  too  evident  marks  of  the  first 
maternity.  All  this  in  its  simple  eccentricity  is  strong,  rough,  and 
very  imposing.  The  touch  is  rigid ;  the  painting  firm,  smooth,  and 
full ;  the  color  clear,  grave,  and  already  harmonious,  from  its  energy, 
its  restrained  radiance,  and  the  brilliancy  and  consistency  of  the  bold 
coloring  of  the  future  school  of  Bruges. 

If,  as  everything  leads  us  to  believe,  Jan  van  Eyck  is  the  author 
of  the  central  panel  and  the  lower  wings,  of  which  unfortunately 
St  Bavon  only  possesses  copies  made  an  hundred  years  after  by 


THE    VAN  EYCKS  AND  MEMLING.  323 

Coxcien,  he  had  nothing  more  to  do  but  to  develop  his  mind  con- 
formably to  his  brother's  manner.  He  joined  to  it  on  his  own 
account  more  truth  in  the  faces,  more  luxury  and  minute  reality  in 
the  architecture,  the  fabrics,  and  the  gilding.  He  introduced  es- 
pecially open  air,  the  sight  of  fertile  country,  and  bluish  distances. 
Finally,  what  his  brother  had  maintained  in  the  splendors  of  the 
myth,  and  upon  a  Byzantine  foundation,  he  made  descend  to  the  level 
of  terrestrial  horizons. 

Times  have  changed.  The  Christ  is  born  and  dead.  The  work 
of  redemption  is  accomplished.  Do  you  wish  to  know  how,  plasti- 
cally, not  as  a  missal  illuminator,  but  as  a  painter,  Jan  van  Eyck 
understood  the  exhibition  of  this  great  mystery  ?  It  was  thus  :  A 
vast  lawn  all  spangled  with  spring  flowers ;  in  front  the  Fountain  of 
Life,  a  pretty  fountain  falling  in  sheaves  into  a  marble  basin  ;  in  the 
centre,  an  altar  draped  with  purple,  and  upon  this  altar  a  white  Lamb  ; 
immediately  around,  a  garland  of  little  winged  angels,  almost  all  in 
white,  with  shades  of  pale  blue  and  rosy  gray.  A  great  open  space 
isolates  the  august  symbol,  and  upon  this  untrodden  turf  there  is 
nothing  but  the  dark  green  of  the  thick  growth,  and  hundreds  of  the 
white  stars  of  the  field  daisy.  The  foreground  on  the  left  is  occupied 
by  kneeling  prophets,  and  by  a  large  group  of  men  standing.  These 
are  those  who,  believing  before  the  time,  predicted  Christ,  and  also 
the  pagans,  the  doctors,  the  philosophers,  the'  unbelievers,  from,  the 
ancient  bards  to  the  burghers  of  Ghent ;  thick  beards,  rather  flat 
faces,  pouting  lips,  countenances  full  of  life,  little  gesture  or  attitude, 
—  a  small  abstract  in  twenty  figures  of  the  moral  world,  before  and 


324      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

after  Christ,  taken  from  outside  the  confessors  of  the  new  faith. 
Those  who  still  doubt,  hesitate  and  reflect ;  those  who  had  denied, 
are  confounded ;  the  prophets  are  in  ecstasy.  The  foreground  on 
the  right,  opposite,  —  and  with  that  intentional  symmetry  without 
which  there  would  be  neither  majesty  in  the  idea  nor  rhythm  in  the 
arrangement,  —  the  right  foreground  is  occupied  by  the  group  of  the 
twelve  apostles  kneeling,  and  by  the  imposing  assembly  of  the  true 
servants  of  the  Gospel,  priests,  abbots,  bishops  and  popes,  all  beard- 
less, plump,  pale  and  calm,  scarcely  looking,  —  sure  of  the  fact, 
adoring  in  a  state  of  beatitude,  magnificent  in  their  red  robes,  with 
their  golden  chasubles,  their  mitres  of  gold,  their  crosses  of  gold,  their 
stoles  woven  with  gold,  all  loaded  with  pearls,  rubies,  and  emeralds, 
the  sparkling  jewels  playing  upon  this  glowing  purple,  which  is  Van 
Eyck's  red.  In  the  background,  far  behind  the  Lamb,  and  upon  an 
elevated  ground  which  leads  to  the  horizon,  is  a  green  wood,  a  grove 
of  orange-trees,  rose-bushes,  and  myrtles  all  in  flower  and  fruit, 
whence  issue  on  the  right  the  long  procession  of  Martyrs,  on  the  left 
that  of  the  Holy  Women,  crowned  with  roses  and  bearing  palms. 
These  latter,  clothed  in  tender  colors,  are  all  in  pale  blue,  blue,  rose 
color,  or  lilac.  The  Martyrs,  almost  all  bishops,  are  in  blue  mantles, 
and  nothing  is  more  exquisite  than  the  effect  of  these  two  distant  theo- 
ries, fine,  precise,  always  vivid,  detaching  themselves,  by  these  notes 
of  delicate  or  dark  blue,  from  the  austere  background  of  the  sacred 
wood.  Finally,  there  is  a  line  of  darker  hills  ;  then  Jerusalem  figured 
by  the  outline  of  a  city,  or  rather  by  spires,  high  towers,  and  belfries, 
and  for  the  extreme  distance,  blue  mountains.  The  sky  has  the  iro- 


THE    VAN  EYCKS  AND  MEM  LING.  325 

maculate  serenity  appropriate  to  such  a  moment ;  it  is  of  palest  blue, 
feebly  tinged  with  ultramarine  at  the  top ;  it  has  the  pearly  whiteness, 
the  morning  clearness,  and  the  poetical  signification  of  a  beautiful 
dawn. 

Such  is,  translated,  that  is  to  say,  traduced  by  a  cold  abstract,  the 
central  panel,  and  the  master  portion  of  this  colossal  triptych.  Have 
I  given  you  an  idea  of  it  ?  Not  at  all.  The  mind  can  dwell  upon  it 
forever,  dream  of  it  forever,  without  finding  all  that  it  expresses  or 
evokes.  Even  the  eye  can  delight  in  it  without  exhausting  the  ex- 
traordinary wealth  of  the  enjoyment  that  it  causes,  or  the  instruction 
that  it  gives  us.  The  little  picture  of  the  Magi,  at  Brussels,  is  only 
the  delicate  amusement  of  a  goldsmith  beside  this  powerful  concen- 
tration of  the  soul  and  the  manual  gifts  of  a  truly  great  man. 

There  remains,  to  be  considered  attentively  when  this  has  been 
seen,  the  Virgin  and  St.  Donatus,  at  the  Museum  of  Bruges.  This 
picture,  of  which  a  reproduction  is  found  at  the  Antwerp  Museum, 
is  the  most  important  that  Van  Eyck  has  signed,  at  least  as  to  the 
dimensions  of  the  figures.  It  belongs  to  1436,  and  consequently  is 
four  years  later  than  the  Adoration  of  the  Lamb.  By  the  arrange- 
ment, the  style,  the  character  of  the  form,  the  color,  and  the  work, 
it  recalls  the  Virgin  of  the  Donor,  that  we  have  at  the  Louvre. 
It  is  not  more  precise  in  finish,  nor  more  delicately  observed  in 
detail.  The  ingenuous  chiaroscuro  that  bathes  the  little  compo- 
sition at  the  Louvre,  the  perfect  truth,  and  the  idealization  of  all 
things  obtained  by  care  of  hand,  beauty  of  workmanship,  and  the 
inimitable  transparency  of  the  material ;  this  mingling  of  minute 


326      THE   OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

observation  and  of  reveries  pursued  through  half-tints,  —  show  supe- 
rior qualities  that  the  picture  of  Bruges  attains  and  does  not  exceed. 
But  here  everything  is  broader,  more  mature,  more  grandly  con- 
ceived, constructed,  and  painted ;  and  the  work  thence  becomes 
more  masterly,  because  it  enters  fully  into  the  aims  of  modern  art, 
and  comes  near  satisfying  them  all. 

The  Virgin  is  ugly.  The  child,  a  rickety  nursling,  with  thin  hair, 
copied,  without  alteration,  from  some  poor  little  half-starved  model, 
bears  a  bunch  of  flowers  and  is  caressing  a  perroquet.  On  the  right 
of  the  Virgin  is  St.  Donatus,  with  a  golden  mitre  and  blue  cape  ; 
on  the  left,  forming  a  side  scene,  St.  George,  a  handsome  young 
man,  a  sort  of  androgynous  being  in  chased  armor,  raises  his  helmet, 
salutes  the  child-God  with  a  strange  look,  and  smiles  upon  him. 
Mantegna,  when  he  conceived  his  Minerva  banishing  the  Vices, 
with  her  chiselled  cuirass,  her  golden  helmet,  and  her  fair  angry 
face,  could  not  have  engraved  the  St.  George  I  speak  of  with  a 
firmer  burin,  or  made  its  border  with  a  more  incisive  touch,  and 
never  could  have  painted  or  colored  like  this.  Between  the  Virgin 
and  the  St.  George,  upon  his  knees  figures  the  Canon  George  de 
Pala  (Van  der  Paele),  the  donor.  It  is  incontestably  the  strongest 
part  of  the  picture.  He  is  in  a  white  surplice  ;  he  holds  in  his 
clasped  hands  —  his  short,  square,  wrinkled  hands  —  an  open  book, 
gloves  and  horn  spectacles  ;  over  his  left  arm  hangs  a  band  of  gray 
fur.  He  is  an  old  man.  He  is  bald ;  little  scattered  hairs  play 
around  his  temples,  of  which  the  bones  are  visible  and  hard  under 
the  thin  skin.  His  face  is  thick,  his  eyes  half  closed,  the  muscles 


THE    VAN  EYCKS  AND  MEMLING.  327 

contracted,  hardened,  seamed,  and  furrowed  by  old  age.  This  great, 
lank,  wrinkled  visage  is  a  marvel  of  characteristic  drawing  and  paint- 
ing. All  the  art  of  Holland  is  there.  Add  to  the  scene  its  frame, 
and  its  ordinary  furniture,  —  the  throne,  the  dais  with  a  black  back- 
ground with  red  figures,  a  complicated  architecture,  a  few  dark 
marbles,  a  bit  of  painted  glass,  through  whose  lens-shaped  panes 
sifts  the  greenish  light  of  the  pictures  of  Van  Eyck  ;  a  marble  floor, 
and  under  the  feet  of  the  Virgin,  that  fine  Oriental  carpet,  that  old 
Persian  rug,  perhaps  well  enough  copied  to  deceive  the  eye,  but  in 
any  case  kept  like  the  rest  in  perfect  subordination  to  the  picture. 
The  whole  tone  is  grave,  deep,  and  rich,  extraordinarily  harmonious 
and  powerful.  The  color  flows  in  a  broad  stream.  It  is  unbroken, 
but  very  learnedly  composed,  and  still  more  learnedly  united  by  subtle 
values.  In  truth,  when  attention  is  concentrated  upon  it,  it  is  a 
picture  that  makes  one  forget  everything  that  is  not  it,  and  gives 
reason  to  think  that  the  art  of  painting  has  found  its  highest  expres- 
sion, and  found  it  at  its  very  first  hour.  And  yet,  without  changing 
either  theme  or  manner,  Memling  was  to  say  something  more. 

The  history  of  Memling,  transmitted  by  tradition,  is  singular  and 
touching.  He  was  a  young  painter  attached,  after  the  death  of  Van 
Eyck,  to  the  house  of  Charles  the  Bold,  perhaps  a  young  soldier  of 
the  wars  of  Switzerland  and  Lorraine,  a  fighter  at  Granson  and 
Morat,  who  returned  to  Flanders  much  disabled ;  and  one  day  in 
January,  1477,  on  one  of  the  icy  days  which  followed  the  defeat  at 
Nancy  and  the  death  of  the  Duke,  he  came  and  knocked  at  the  door 
of  St  John's  Hospital,  and  asked  a  lodging,  rest,  food,  and  care. 


328      THE   OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

They  gave  him  all.  He  recovered  from  his  fatigues  and  his  wounds, 
and  on  the  following  year,  in  the  solitude  of  this  hospitable  home, 
in  the  quiet  of  the  cloister,  he  undertook  the  Shrine  of  St.  Ursula, 
and  then  executed  the  Marriage  of  St.  Catherine,  and  the  other  little 
diptychs  or  triptychs  that  are  seen  there  to-day.  Unfortunately,  as  it 
appears,  —  and  what  a  pity  it  is  !  —  this  pretty  story  is  only  a  legend 
that  must  be  renounced.  According  to  the  true  history,  Memling 
was  simply  a  burgher  of  Bruges,  and  painted  like  many  another, 
having  learned  the  art  at  Brussels,  practised  it  in  1472,  lived,  not  at 
the  Hospital  of  St.  John,  but  in  the  Rue  St.  George  as  a  comfortable 
proprietor,  and  died  in  1492.  Of  his  journeys  to  Italy,  of  his  sojourn 
in  Spain,  of  his  death  and  burial  at  the  Convent  of  Mirafiori,  what 
is  there  true  or  false  ?  From  the  moment  when  the  flower  of  the 
legend  disappears,  all  the  rest  must  follow.  Nevertheless  there 
exists  something  more  than  a  strangeness  in  the  education,  the 
habits,  and  the  career  of  this  man,  —  a  quite  marvellous  thing,  the 
very  quality  of  his  genius,  so  surprising  at  such  a  time  and  amid 
such  surroundings. 

Moreover,  in  spite  of  the  contradictions  of  historians,  it  is  still  at 
the  Hospital  of  St.  John,  which  has  preserved  his  works,  that  one 
likes  to  picture  Memling  when  he  was  painting  them.  And  when 
they  are  found  in  the  depths  of  this  unchanged  hospice,  between 
these  walls  like  those  of  a  stronghold,  in  this  damp,  narrow,  grassy 
square,  only  two  paces  from  Notre  Dame,  it  is  still  there,  and  not 
elsewhere,  that,  in  spite  of  all,  their  birth  was  seen.  I  will  say 
nothing  of  the  Hunting  of  St.  Ursula,  which  is  quite  the  most  cele- 


THE   VAN  EYCKS  AND  MEMLIXG.  329 

brated  of  Memling's  works,  and  passes  wrongly  for  the  best.  It  is  a 
miniature  in  oil,  ingenious,  artless,  exquisite  in  certain  details,  infan- 
tile in  many  others,  a  charming  inspiration,  —  to  tell  the  truth,  quite 
too  minute  in  detail ;  and  painting,  far  from  making  a  step  forward, 
must  have  retrograded  after  Van  Eyck,  and  even  after  Van  der  Wey- 
den  (see  at  Brussels  his  two  triptychs,  and  especially  the  Weeping 
Woman),  if  Memling  had  stopped  there. 

The  Marriage  of  St.  Catherine,  on  the  contrary,  is  a  decisive  page. 
I  do  not  know  whether  it  marks  a  material  advance  upon  Van  Eyck ; 
that  is  to  be  examined :  but  at  least  it  marks,  in  the  manner  of  feel- 
ing and  in  the  ideal,  a  quite  personal  impulse,  which  did  not  exist 
in  Van  Eyck,  and  that  no  art  whatever  manifests  so  deliciously. 
The  Virgin  is  in  the  centre  of  the  composition,  on  a  platform,  seated 
and  enthroned  ;  on  her  right  she  has  St.  John  the  Forerunner,  and 
St  Catherine  with  her  emblematic  wheel ;  on  her  left,  St.  Bar- 
bara ;  and  above,  the  donor,  Jan  Floreins,  in  the  usual  costume  of 
a  brother  of  the  Hospital  of  St.  John.  In  the  middle  distance  fig- 
ure St.  John  the  Evangelist  and  two  angels  in  priestly  robes.  I 
neglect  the  Virgin,  who  is  very  superior  as  a  choice  of  types  to  the 
Virgins  of  Van  Eyck,  but  very  inferior  to  the  portraits  of  the  two 
saints. 

The  St.  Catherine  is  in  a  long,  training,  clinging  petticoat  with 
a  black  ground  flowered  with  gold ;  the  sleeves  of  crimson  velvet, 
and  the  bodice  closely  fitting  and  clinging  ;  a  little  diadem  of  gold 
and  jewels  circles  her  rounded  brow.  A  veil,  transparent  as  water, 
adds  to  the  whiteness  of  her  complexion  the  paleness  of  an  impal- 


330      THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

pable  fabric.  Nothing  can  be  more  exquisite  than  this  infantile  and 
feminine  face,  so  delicately  framed  in  her  head-dress  of  jewels  and 
gauze ;  and  never  did  painter,  in  love  with  a  woman's  hands,  paint 
anything  more  perfect  in  gesture,  in  design,  in  contour,  than  the 
long,  well-shaped  hand,  so  slender  and  pearly,  which  extends  a  fin- 
ger for  the  betrothal  ring. 

The  St.  Barbara  is  sitting.  With  her  pretty  erect  head,  her 
straight  neck,  with  the  nape  high  and  smooth,  with  firm  ligaments, 
her  tightly  closed  and  mystical  lips,  her  beautiful  pure  eyelids  down- 
cast over  a  glance  that  can  be  divined,  she  reads  attentively  in  a 
mass-book  at  the  back  of  which  is  seen  a  bit  of  the  blue  silk  cover. 
Her  bosom  is  outlined  under  the  closely  fitting  corsage  of  a  green 
robe.  A  dark  red  mantle  clothes  her  rather  more  amply  with  its 
large  folds,  which  are  very  picturesque  and  very  learned. 

Had  Memling  made  but  these  two  figures,  —  and  the  Donor 
and  the  St.  John  are  also  works  of  the  first  rank  of  merit,  and  of 
the  same  interest  as  to  their  spirit, —  it  might  almost  be  said  that 
he  had  done  enough  for  his  glory  at  first,  and  especially  for  the  as- 
tonishment of  those  who  study  certain  problems,  and  for  the  delight 
that  is  experienced  in  seeing  them  solved.  Observing  only  the  form, 
the  perfect  drawing,  the  natural,  unaffected  gesture,  the  clearness  of 
the  tints,  the  satin  softness  of  the  skin,  its  unity  and  suppleness  ; 
considering  the  draperies  in  their  rich  colors,  so  true  and  character- 
istic in  their  cut,  —  it  might  be  called  Nature  herself  observed  by  an 
eye  admirably  sensitive  and  sincere.  The  backgrounds,  the  archi- 
tecture, and  the  accessories  have  all  the  sumptuousness  of  the  ar- 


THE    VAN  EYCKS  AND  MEMLING.  331 

rangements  of  Van  Eyck.  There  is  a  throne  with  black  columns, 
.a  marble  portico,  and  a  marble  floor ;  under  the  feet  of  the  Virgin  a 
Persian  carpet ;  finally,  for  a  perspective,  a  fair  country,  and  the 
Gothic  outline  of  a  town  with  belfries  bathed  in  the  tranquil  gleam 
of  an  Elysian  light ;  the  same  chiaroscuro  as  in  Van  Eyck,  with 
new  suppleness  ;  better  indicated  distances  between  the  half-lights 
and  the  lights;  in  all,  a  work  less  energetic  and  more  tender, — 
such  is,  summing  it  up  at  a  glance,  the  first  aspect  of  the  Mystical 
Marriage  of  St.  Catherine. 

I  shall  speak  neither  of  the  other  little  pictures  so  respectfully 
preserved  in  this  same  old  hall  in  the  Hospital  of  St.  John,  nor  of 
the  St.  Christopher  of  the  museum  at  Bruges,  any  more  than  I  have 
spoken  of  the  portrait  of  the  Wife  of  Van  Eyck,  and  his  {amous 
Head  of  Christ  exhibited  at  the  same  museum.  These  are  fine  or 
curious  works,  which  confirm  the  idea  that  one  should  form  of  Van 
Eyck's  way  of  seeing,  and  Memling's  way  of  feeling  ;  but  the  two 
painters,  the  two  characters,  the  two  geniuses,  are  more  powerfully 
revealed  than  elsewhere  in  their  pictures  of  St.  Donatus  and  St. 
Catherine.  It  is  upon  the  same  ground  and  in  the  same  accepta- 
tion that  they  can  be  compared,  opposed,  and  made  clearly  evident 
each  by  the  other. 

How  were  their  talents  formed  ?  What  superior  education  could 
have  given  them  so  much  experience?  Who  bade  them  see  with 
this  strong  simplicity,  this  moved  attention,  this  energetic  patience, 
this  always  equable  sentiment,  in  a  labor  so  studied  and  so  slow? 
Both  formed  so  early,  so  quickly,  and  so  perfectly !  The  first  Ital- 


332       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

ian  Renascence  has  nothing  like  it ;  and  in  this  particular  order  of 
expression  of  sentiment,  and  of  subjects  introduced,  it  is  agreed  that 
no  school  of  Lombardy,  Tuscany,  or  Venice  ever  produced  anything 
that  resembles  this  first  bursting  forth  of  the  school  of  Bruges. 
The  handiwork  itself  is  perfect.  The  language  has  since  been  en- 
riched, has  become  more  supple,  and  has  been  better  developed,  that 
is,  before  it  was  corrupted  ;  but  it  has  never  recovered  either  this 
expressive  conciseness,  or  this  appropriateness  of  method,  or  this 
splendor. 

Consider  Van  Eyck  and  Memling  by  the  externals  of  their 
art,  and  it  is  the  same  art  which,  applied  to  august  objects, 
renders  them  by  what  is  most  precious.  Rich  fabrics,  pearls  and 
gold,  velvets  and  silks,  marbles  and  wrought  metals,  —  the  hand 
occupies  itself  only  with  making  the  luxury  and  beauty  of  these 
materials  felt  by  the  luxury  and  beauty  of  labor.  In  that  painting 
is  still  very  near  its  origin,  for  it  seems  to  understand  that  it  strug- 
gles with  the  resources  of  the  art  of  jewellers,  engravers,  and  en- 
amellers.  On  the  other  hand,  we  see  how  far  it  is  from  that.  With 
regard  to  methods,  there  is  no  very  apparent  difference  between 
Memling  and  Jan  Van  Eyck,  who  preceded  him  by  forty  years. 
One  might  ask  which  advanced  the  more  rapidly,  and  the  farther. 
And  if  the  dates  did  not  show  us  who  was  the  inventor  and  who 
the  disciple,  one  would  imagine,  by  this  still  greater  security  of  result, 
that  Van  Eyck  had  rather  profited  by  the  lessons  of  Memling.  At 
first  one  would  think  them  contemporaries,  so  identical  are  their 
compositions,  so  identical  their  method,  their  archaisms  being  of  the 
same  period. 


THE    VAN  EYCKS  AND  MEMLING.  333 

The  main  differences  which  appear  in  their  execution  are  differ- 
ences of  blood,  and  depend  upon  the  shades  of  temperament  in 
the  two  natures. 

In  Van  Eyck  there  is  more  body,  muscle,  and  flow  of  blood,  hence 
the  striking  virility  of  his  faces,  and  the  style  of  his  pictures.  He 
is  in  everything  a  portrait  painter  of  the  family  of  Holbein,  precise, 
sharp,  penetrating  even  to  violence.  He  sees  more  truly,  and  also 
sees  men  stouter  and  shorter.  The  sensations  he  receives  from  the 
aspect  of  things  are  more  robust ;  those  which  come  from  their  tint, 
more  intense.  His  palette  has  a' plenitude,  an  abundance,  and  sever- 
ity that  Memling's  lacks.  His  gamut  is  more  equably  strong,  and 
better  maintained  as  a  whole,  and  is  composed  of  more  learned 
values.  His  whites  are  more  unctuous,  his  red  is  richer,  and  the 
indigo  blue  —  the  fine  blue  of  the  old  Japanese  enamel,  which  is  his 
own  —  is  more  sustained  by  coloring  principles,  and  of  thicker  sub- 
stance. He  is  more  strongly  impressed  by  the  luxury  and  the  high 
price  of  the  rare  objects  which  abound  in  the  luxurious  habits  of 
his  time.  Never  did  Indian  Rajah  adorn  his  clothes  with  more  gold 
and  jewels  than  Van  Eyck  puts  into  his  pictures.  When  a  picture 
by  Van  Eyck  is  fine,  — and  that  of  Bruges  is  the  best  example  of 
this,  —  it  might  be  called  jewel  work  enamelled  on  gold,  or  one  of 
those  fabrics  of  varied  colors  whose  warp  is  gold.  Gold  is  felt  every- 
where, above  and  below.  When  it  does  not  play  over  the  surface, 
it  appears  under  the  tissue.  It  is  the  bond,  the  base,  the  visible 
or  latent  element,  of  this  the  most  opulent  painting  in  the  world. 
Van  Eyck  is  also  more  adroit,  because  his  copyist  hand  obeys  his 


334       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

marked  preferences.  He  is  more  precise,  he  asseverates  more ;  he 
imitates  admirably.  When  he  paints  a  carpet,  he  weaves  it  with  a 
choice  of  the  best  tints.  When  he  paints  marbles,  he  is  very  near 
the  polish  of  marble,  and  when  in  the  shadow  of  his  chapels  he 
makes  the  opaline  lenses  of  his  colored  glass  gleam,  he  absolutely 
deceives  the  eye. 

In  Memling  there  is  the  same  power  of  tone  and  the  same  bril- 
liancy, with  less  ardor  and  real  truth.  I  would  not  dare  to  say 
that  in  the  marvellous  triptych  of  the  St.  Catherine,  in  spite  of 
the  extreme  resonance  of  the  coloring,  its  gamut  is  as  sustained 
as  that  of  his  great  predecessor.  On  the  other  hand,  he  already 
has  misty  and  melting  passages,  and  half-tints  that  Van  Eyck  never 
knew.  The  figure  of  the  St.  John  and  that  of  the  Donor  indicate, 
in  the  way  of  sacrificing,  in  the  relations  of  the  principal  light  to 
the  secondary  ones,  and  in  the  connection  of  things  with  the  plane 
they  occupy,  an  advance  since  the  St.  Donatus,  and,  above  all,  a 
decided  step  beyond  the  triptych  of  St.  Bavon.  The  very  color  of 
the  vestments,  one  of  dark  maroon,  the  other  a  rather  dull  red, 
reveals  a  new  art  in  the  composition  of  a  tone  seen  in  shadow, 
and  combinations  of  the  palette,  already  more  subtle.  The  handi- 
work is  not  very  different.  Still  it  differs  in  this :  everywhere  that 
he  is  sustained,  animated,  and  moved  by  sentiment,  Memling  is  as 
firm  as  Van  Eyck.  Everywhere,  where  the  interest  of  the  object 
is  less,  and  particularly  where  the  value  affectionately  attached  to  it 
is  less,  relatively  to  Van  Eyck,  he  may  be  said  to  be  more  feeble. 
Gold  is  in  his  eyes  only  an  accessory,  and  living  nature  is  more 


THE    VAN  EYCKS  AND  MEMLING.  335 

studied  than  still  life.  To  the  heads,  hands,  necks,  the  pearly  pulp 
of  a  rosy  skin,  he  applies  himself,  and  in  them  he  excels,  because, 
in  fact,  as  soon  as  they  are  compared  from  the  point  of  view  of  senti- 
ment there  is  no  longer  anything  in  common  beween  him  and  Van 
Eyck.  A  world  separates  them.  In  forty  years,  which  is  very  little, 
there  has  taken  place,  in  the  way  of  seeing  and  feeling,  believing  and 
inspiring  belief,  a  strange  phenomenon,  which  here  bursts  forth  like 
light. 

Van  Eyck  saw  with  his  eye,  Memling  begins  to  see  with  his  mind. 
One  thought  well  and  truly ;  the  other  has  not  so  much  the  air  of  a 
thinker,  but  his  heart  beats  quite  differently.  One  copied  and  imi- 
tated ;  the  other  also  copies,  imitates,  and  transfigures.  The  former 
reproduced,  without  any  care  for  the  ideal,  human  types,  especially 
the  masculine  types  which  passed  under  his  eyes  in  all  ranks  of  the 
society  of  this  time.  The  latter  dreams  while  he  looks  at  Nature, 
imagines  while  he  translates  her,  chooses  what  is  most  lovely  and 
delicate  in  human  forms,  and  creates,  especially  as  a  feminine  type, 
an  elect  being,  unknown  till  then,  and  who  has  since  disappeared. 
They  are  women,  but  women  seen  as  he  loved  them,  and  according 
to  the  tender  predilection  of  a  mind  turned  towards  grace,  nobility, 
and  beauty.  Of  this  unknown  image  of  woman,  he  made  a  real  person 
and  also  an  emblem.  He  did  not  embellish  her,  but  he  perceived  in 
her  what  no  one  else  had  seen.  It  might  be  said  that  he  paints  her 
thus  only  because  he  discovers  in  her  a  charm,  an  attraction,  and  a 
conscience  that  no  one  else  had  suspected.  He  adorns  her  physically 
and  morally.  In  painting  the  fair  face  of  a  woman,  he  paints  a  lovely 


336       THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

soul  His  application,  his  talent,  the  carefulness  of  his  hand,  are 
only  forms  of  his  regard,  and  of  the  tender  respect  he  has  for  her. 

There  is  no  uncertainty  about  the  epoch,  the  race,  or  the  rank  to 
which  belong  these  fragile  blond  creatures,  pure  and  yet  of  this  world. 
They  are  princesses  of  the  best  blood ;  they  have  the  delicate  liga- 
ments, the  indolent  white  hands,  and  the  pallor  contracted  in  a  se- 
questered life.  They  have  a  natural  way  of  wearing  their  clothes  and 
diadems,  of  holding  their  missals  and  reading  them,  that  is  neither 
borrowed  nor  invented  by  a  man  who  is  a  stranger  to  the  world 
and  to  this  society. 

But  if  nature  was  thus,  whence  comes  it  that  Van  Eyck  did  not 
see  it  thus,  —  he  who  knew  the  same  world,  was  placed  in  it  probably 
in  still  higher  station,  and  lived  in  it  as  a  painter  and  gentleman  of 
the  bedchamber  of  John  of  Bavaria  and  later  of  Philip  the  Good,  in 
the  heart  of  this  more  than  royal  society  ?  If  such  were  the  little 
princesses  of  the  Court,  how  is  it  that  Jan  van  Eyck  has  not  given 
us  any  idea  of  them  that  is  delicate,  attractive,  and  beautiful  ?  Why 
did  he  only  see  the  men  truly  ?  Why  was  there  always  something 
strong,  squat,  rough,  or  at  least  ugly,  when  he  undertook  to  pass  from 
masculine  attributes  to  feminine  ?  Why  has  he  not  visibly  embel- 
lished his  brother  Hubert's  Eve  ?  Why  is  there  so  little  decency 
above  the  Mystic  Lamb,  while  we  find  in  Memling  all  the  adorable 
delicacy  of  chastity  and  modesty,  —  pretty  women  with  the  air  of 
saints,  fine  honest  brows,  pure  temples,  lips  without  a  fold ;  all 
innocence  in  flower,  every  charm  enveloping  the  purity  of  angels; 
a  beatitude,  a  tranquil  softness,  an  inward  ecstasy,  which  is  found 


THE    VAN  EYCKS  AND  MEM  LING.  337 

nowhere  else  ?  What  grace  of  heaven  had  descended  upon  this  young 
soldier  or  rich  burgher  to  fill  his  soul  with  tenderness,  purify  his 
eye,  cultivate  his  taste,  and  open  to  him,  at  the  same  time  in  the 
physical  and  moral  worlds,  such  new  perspectives  ? 

Less  celestially  inspired  than  the  women,  the  men  painted  by 
Memling  resemble,  no  more  than  they,  those  of  Van  Eyck.  They 
are  gentle  and  sorrowful  persons,  rather  long  of  body,  of  bronzed 
complexion,  with  straight  noses,  thin  light  beards,  and  pensive 
looks.  They  have  fewer  passions,  but  the  same  ardor.  They  have 
a  less  prompt  and  masculine  muscular  action,  but  there  is  found  in 
them  I  know  not  what  that  is  grave  and  tried,  which  gives  them 
the  look  of  having  passed  through  life  suffering  and  reflective. 
The  St.  John,  whose  fine  Evangelical  head,  lost  in  the  half-tint,  is  of 
such  velvety  execution,  personifies  once  for  all  the  type  of  masculine 
figures  as  Memling  conceives  them.  It  is  the  same  with  the  Do- 
nor, with  his  Christlike  face  and  pointed  beard.  Note,  I  beg,  that 
his  saints,  both  men  and  women,  are  manifestly  portraits. 

They  live  a  deep,  serene,  and  recollected  life.  In  this  art,  which 
is  so  human,  there  is  not  a  trace  of  the  villanies  and  atrocities  of 
the  time.  Consult  the  work  of  this  painter,  who,  however  he  may  have 
lived,  must  have  known  his  age ;  you  will  find  in  it  not  one  of  those 
tragic  scenes  which  it  has  pleased  men  to  represent  since.  No 
quarterings,  nor  boiling  pitch,  except  incidentally,  as  an  anecdote, 
or  medallion  ;  no  wrists  hewed  off,  no  skinning  of  naked  bodies, 
no  ferocious  arrests,  no  assassin  judges,  and  no  executioners.  The 
Martyrdom  of  St.  Hippolytus,  that  is  to  be  seen  at  the  Cathedral 

22 


338        THE  OLD  MASTERS  OF  BELGIUM  AND  HOLLAND. 

of  Bruges,  and  is  attributed  to  him,  is  by  Bouts,  or  Gerard  David 
Old  and  touching  legends,  like  St.  Ursula  or  St.  Christopher,  the 
Virgins,  the  Saints  wedded  to  Christ,  believing  priests,  and  saints 
who  make  one  believe  in  them,  a  passing  pilgrim  under  whose 
features  the  artist  is  recognized,  —  these  are  Memling's  figures.  In 
all  there  is  a  good  faith,  a  simple  goodness,  an  ingenuousness,  which 
are  something  like  a  prodigy  ;  a  mysticism  of  sentiment  betrayed 
rather  than  shown,  whose  perfume  is  felt  without  any  affectation 
breathed  into  the  form  ;  a  Christian  art,  if  you  will,  exempt  from 
all  mingling  of  pagan  ideas.  If  Memling  escapes  his  own  age,  he 
forgets  the  others.  His  ideal  is  his  own  ;  perhaps  he  announces 
the  Bellini,  Botticelli,  and  Perugino,  but  not  Leonardo,  nor  Luini, 
nor  the  Tuscans,  nor  the  Romans  of  the  true  Renascence.  Here 
is  no  St.  John  that  might  be  mistaken  for  a  Bacchus;  no  Virgin 
nor  St.  Elizabeth,  with  the  strangely  pagan  smile  of  a  La  Joconda ; 
no  prophets  resembling  antique  gods  and  philosophically  confounded 
with  the  sibyls  ;  no  myths  nor  hidden  symbols.  There  is  no  need 
of  a  very  learned  exegesis  to  explain  this  sincere  art,  full  of  good 
faith,  ignorance,  and  belief.  He  says  what  he  wishes  to  say  with 
the  candor  of  the  simple  in  heart  and  mind,  with  the  naturalness 
of  a  child.  He  paints  what  was  venerated  and  believed,  as  it  was 
believed.  He  retires  to  his  interior  world,  shuts  himself  in,  there 
his  soul  is  lifted  up  and  there  he  expands.  Nothing  of  the  exterior 
world  penetrates  into  this  sanctuary  of  souls  in  deep  repose, —  neither 
what  is  done,  nor  thought,  nor  said  there,  and  not  in  the  least  what  is 
there  seen. 


THE    VAN  EYCKS  AND  MEM  LING.  339 

Imagine,  amid  the  horrors  of  that  age,  a  sanctuary,  a  sort  of 
angelic  retreat,  ideally  silent  and  sequestered,  where  passions  are 
silent,  where  troubles  cease,  where  men  pray  or  worship,  where  every- 
thing is  transfigured,  physical  ugliness  and  moral  hideousness,  where 
new  sentiments  are  born,  where,  like  lilies,  grow  ingenuousness,  gen- 
tleness, a  supernatural  mildness,  and  you  will  have  an  idea  of  the 
unique  soul  of  Memling,  and  of  the  miracle  he  performed  in  his 
works. 

It  is  a  singular  thing  ;  but  to  speak  worthily  of  such  a  soul,  out  of 
regard  to  him  and  to  one's  self,  peculiar  terms  must  be  used,  and 
in  our  language  a  sort  of  virginity  must  be  reconstructed  for  the 
occasion.  In  this  way  only  can  he  be  made  known  ;  but  words  have 
been  put  to  such  uses  since  the  time  of  Memling,  that  there  is 
great  difficulty  in  finding  any  which  befit  him. 


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